Jordan Neely was a criminal who had been arrested dozens of times. The homeless man had a habit of physically assaulting people and apparently decided he would add to the New York problem of intimidating and threatening innocent people on the subway.
That came to an abrupt end when Neely began having a violent psychotic break in front of the wrong person. Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old Marine, stood in defense of the people and put Neely into a chokehold.
This would mark an end to Neely’s terrorism. Despite Penny putting a still-alive Neely into a recovery position after his chokehold, Neely would later be pronounced dead.
What resulted after that was nothing short of a witch hunt. For the crime of protecting others and acting in self-defense, Penny was accused of murder by every hack politician and agenda-driven activist in and out of office. He is now fighting for his freedom against second-degree manslaughter charges and for the crime of doing the right thing. If convicted, he’ll spend 15 years in prison.
As Ian K noted in his video about the subject, the Neely family’s attorney Donte Mills didn’t just come down on Penny but society over Neely’s death. According to Mills, while Neely was having his psychotic break, nobody asked him what was wrong or tried to help him. The real evil that was done that fateful day was other people not having compassion…for a person who was set on doing violence against them while in psychosis.
I have to agree with Ian K’s assessment of what someone does when they’re being confronted with lethal force.
In the event someone is attempting to take your very life, taking their life is a very valid option. When someone is screaming that they’re willing to escalate things to the point of harming your child and you’re forced to get between the attacker and your children, then you dealing death to the attacker is a pretty standard response if the attacker decides to follow through.
But Penny didn’t even do anything that usually has lethal results. Penny simply tried to subdue the attacker and even saw to his care after he was neutralized.
No one at any level has any business attempting to punish Penny for doing what was absolutely necessary in that situation. The alternative would be innocent people getting hurt.
I would rather 1,000 criminals with a history of assault and who make a habit of threatening innocents to die by mistake than just one of them manage to continue harming and terrorizing people around them.
Two things can be true. Neely’s past can be a tragic one and I wouldn’t wish his past on my worst enemy. Neely lost his mother at the age of 14 after she was strangled to death and her body stuffed into a suitcase. It’s awful, and it likely affected him all his life.
However, a tragic past does not confer innocence on a person who routinely chooses criminality in the present. People don’t have to be defined by their pasts. Would it have been great if Neely had gotten help? Sure.
But by the time he had run into Penny, it was too late.
People can’t be expected to sit still while they’re being attacked and hope for the best. They can’t stand by and watch as their children are terrorized because the person terrorizing them is in a bad way. When action is needed, action must be taken.
Penny took action at a time when it was necessary and he subdued someone who was becoming violent around innocent people. Penny did nothing wrong.
If anyone did anything wrong it’s the leftist politicians of New York who do nothing as this problem continues to worsen. It’s the fault of these people who don’t have to deal with the crime everyone else has to face. It’s the people who seek to punish those who act in self-defense or the defense of others.
Penny shouldn’t be asked to defend his actions, but these politicians sure need to.
