What We Know About Jordan Neely’s Killing

By Maria Cramer, Hurubie Meko and Amelia Nierenberg

On May 6, 2023; Updated on May 13, 2023

Daniel Penny choked Jordan Neely to death on a New York City subway train on May 1. Mr. Penny has been charged with second-degree manslaughter.

Demonstrators march in protest of the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man killed with a chokehold by another passenger on a subway train in New York City.Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York Times

Daniel Penny, the man who choked Jordan Neely to death on a New York City subway train on May 1, has been charged with second-degree manslaughter in Mr. Neely’s death.

The charges on Friday came more than a week after the killing, and after many politicians, city leaders and activists called for Mr. Penny’s immediate arrest. Mr. Neely’s killing, they said, was an unnecessary tragedy that underscored the city’s inadequate policies toward its most vulnerable and marginalized residents.

Some New Yorkers have also said that Mr. Penny’s actions reflect the frustration and fear many riders have about the transit system; while crime on the subway has fallen lately, crime rates are higher than they were before the pandemic.

Witnesses told the police that Mr. Neely had been shouting at passengers, but there has been no indication that he physically attacked anyone.

Lawyers for Mr. Penny, from the firm Raiser and Kenniff, said in an earlier statement that he “never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death.”

Lennon Edwards, a lawyer for the family of Mr. Neely, said in an interview that Mr. Neely’s killing was unacceptable. “He was robbed of his life in a brutal way by someone who decided that they were judge, jury and executioner on the spot,” he said. “We can’t have vigilantes, and we can’t have people taking the law into their own hands.”

Mayor Eric Adams has called Mr. Neely’s killing “tragic” but has urged patience. In a speech, he said that while “we have no control over” the legal process, “we can control is how our city responds to this tragedy.”

This is what we know so far about the case.

The police said they had received a call at 2:27 p.m. on Monday, May 1, about a fight on an F train at the Broadway-Lafayette Street subway station in Manhattan.

Shortly before that, Mr. Neely had boarded the northbound train at the Second Avenue station, said Juan Alberto Vazquez, a freelance journalist who recorded a nearly four-minute video that captured the moments when Mr. Penny was holding Mr. Neely in a chokehold.

Mr. Neely immediately began screaming, causing people who were sitting near him to move away, Mr. Vazquez recalled. Mr. Neely said he was hungry and thirsty and took off his jacket, throwing it down on the ground.

“‘I’m tired already,’” he said, according to Mr. Vazquez. “‘I don’t care if I go to jail and get locked up. I’m ready to die.’”

The scene at the Broadway-Lafayette station in Manhattan after Jordan Neely was choked to death inside the train. Credit…Paul Martinka

It is unclear if Mr. Penny said anything to Mr. Neely at that point.

At Mr. Penny’s arraignment, the prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, said “the defendant approached Mr. Neely from behind and placed him in a chokehold, taking him down to the ground.”

The train stopped at Broadway-Lafayette, where it remained standing while Mr. Neely was pinned down, as two other men grabbed his arms.

At 2:29 p.m., another passenger can be heard in the video saying that his wife had been in the military and knew about chokeholds, and warning the men that they should make sure Mr. Neely had not defecated on himself.

“You don’t want to catch a murder charge,” he says. “You got a hell of a chokehold, man.”

The men then place Mr. Neely, who is motionless, on his side. A transit worker can be heard over the loudspeaker calling for the police.

“He’s all right,” the passenger who had given the warnings says. “He ain’t gonna die.”

The Fire Department said that it had received a call for help at 2:39 p.m. and that firefighters had arrived at 2:46.

Mr. Neely was taken to the Lenox Health hospital in Greenwich Village, where he was pronounced dead, the police said.

The medical examiner’s office two days later ruled Mr. Neely’s death a homicide, and said that the cause of death was compression of his neck.

Mr. Neely was a dancer and artist known for his impersonation of Michael Jackson during his “Thriller” stage. He would dress up as the musician and ride the trains, moon-walking in front of commuters.

The subway was where he felt happy and free to perform as a dancer, his friends said.

But it was also clear that he was struggling. A friend, Moses Harper, recalled seeing him in 2016 walking through subway cars with his head down.

Jordan Neely, dressed as Michael Jackson, posing for photos in Times Square in 2010.Credit…Thomas Simonetti

Ms. Harper said she had given him her shirt and some food and told him where she lived, urging him to come find her when he was ready to get help.

“He said, ‘I’m going to get it together,’” she said in an interview earlier this week. “And that’s the last time I saw him.”

At protests over Mr. Neely’s killing, some demonstrators have recalled seeing him perform. One man remembered being on a date when his girlfriend had stopped to watch Mr. Neely dance in Union Square.

“I’m a New Yorker — I know him,” said the man, Rashid Littlejohn. “I gave him money.”

John Rich, a subway performer, said he and Mr. Neely had danced together a few times.

“His glittery socks always matched his gloves,” Mr. Rich said, grinning at the memory. “He was serious about his outfit, serious about dancing.”

Mr. Penny attended high school in West Islip, on the south shore of Long Island, and played lacrosse. He enlisted in the Marines as a teenager. He was honorably discharged and is now living in Manhattan and working toward a bachelor’s degree in architecture, according to his lawyer.

Mr. Penny was interviewed by the police after the killing and released. He surrendered to face charges on May 12.

Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times

He is being represented by Raiser & Kenniff, a Manhattan law firm whose founding partners were both in the armed services. His lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, was the Republican candidate for Manhattan district attorney in 2021.

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, will have to prove that Mr. Penny used deadly force without having believed that Mr. Neely was also using deadly force or was about to.

There have been several protests in the wake of Mr. Neely’s death.

At one protest in Brooklyn last week, Wallace Mazon, 28, said the killing reminded him of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer.

He cried when he saw the video of Mr. Neely dying. “I kind of felt hopeless,” Mr. Mazon said. “I just wanted to be in community with other people and not feel so helpless.”

Left-leaning politicians criticized both prosecutors and the mayor for their response after the killing, which some have called a murder and others a lynching.

“We watch people being murdered over and over and over again and it’s tiring. And it’s traumatizing,” said Councilwoman Crystal Hudson of Brooklyn, during a news conference on Thursday.

Protesters gathered around a message painted on the sidewalk near the Manhattan Bridge on May 4. Credit…Juan Arredondo for The New York Times

Other New Yorkers interviewed on the subway have expressed more ambiguous sentiments and even sympathy for Mr. Neely’s killer.

Maria Castaño, 64, an interior designer who lives in Brooklyn, said she viewed the man who choked Mr. Neely as a hero and Mr. Neely as the recipient of justice.

“I feel sorry for the man, but he was acting threatening,” she said.

Ayden James, 28, a Black trans woman, said she knew what it was like not to feel safe on the subway.

“The train is always a scary place,” Ms. James said during a demonstration. But she added that Mr. Neely had not seemed threatening.

“He just was asking for help,” she said, “for food and for shelter.”

A grand jury will hear evidence about the charge against Mr. Penny and eventually vote on whether to bring an indictment. If they do, Mr. Penny will enter a plea. His next court date is July 17.

Marc H. Morial, the National Urban League president and chief executive, said in a statement that the district attorney’s decision to charge Mr. Penny “reminds us that a measured response to this shocking episode was necessary.”

“While not always swift,” he said, “a methodical approach to justice in this case bends towards the fair application of the rule of law.”

Jonah E. Bromwich and Lauren McCarthy contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

This piece ws republished from the New York Times.

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