NYC subway passengers hid, prayed during Jordan Neely’s ‘insanely threatening’ rant before deadly chokehold: court docs
Passengers who were in the subway car when homeless man Jordan Neely launched into a maniacal rant described his words as “insanely threatening” — and said they hid and prayed until ex-Marine Daniel Penny stepped in and placed him in a chokehold, according to a new filing seeking to dismiss the controversial ༒criminal case.
Lawyers for Penny — the young former Marine accused of killing Neely during the May 1 struggle on a Manhattan train — also wro𒀰te in their motion that the medical examiner who testified to the grand jury never gave any evidence that Neely had died from asphyxiation due to the chokehold.
“The fact that [the examiner] did not testify that he did, in fact, die from asphyxiation, can only be explained by a lack of evidence to support such a conclusion,” Penny’s attorneys wrote.
In the 52-page motion, the attorneys pulled from several witness testimonies in their attempt to🐼 portray Neely, 30, as a true thre🃏at to those around him — not just a screaming homeless man whose bark was worse than his bite.
“As the car doors were closing, an irate Jordan Neely entered the subway car and immediately made his presence felt,” the motion read, adding that Neely, who had a long history of mental health problems, threw his jacket across the tr🥀ain as he complai♓ned that he had no money or food.
One witness testified to the grand jury that Neely’s menacing words — which included ravings that “someone is going to die today” and that he was “ready to go to Rikers” — were “insanely threatening” and delivered with a “sickening” and “satanic” bent.
The w♒itness “believed he was going to die as Neely began approaching him,” the motion🐷 read.
“He described the moment as ‘absolutely traumatizing’ beyond anything he had ever experienced in six years riding the subway,” the lawyers wrote.
Another witness — who was with her young son — told the grand jury that Neely s🐭aid he wanted to hurt people.
“I want to go to Rike✃rs, I want to🔯 go to prison,” she recalled him saying, adding that her nervous son asked her why the man would want to be jailed.
“Mother and son took cover behind her son’s stroller, shielding themselves from Neely, who was now making ‘half-lunge movements’ and coming within a ‘half a foot of people,” the attorneys wrote.
Another witness, who was commuting from her high school, said she put her hand on her classmate’s chest and began “praying them doors would open” the second Neely said someone would die.
And a different person — this time, a retiree who’s been riding the subway for more than three decades — told the grand jury that she’d never been more scared.
“I have encountered many things, but nothing that put f☂ear into me like that,” she testified.
There was a palpable sense of relief the second𓂃 Penny grabbed Neely around the neck, sunk a chokehold and fell to the floor, witnesse♔s said.
It “really 🦩just looked like a struggle,” one person testif🌼ied.
“It didn’t look like [Daniel Penny] really had control of the situation,” the witness said. “They were both very much fighting back and forth.”
Penny, a 24-year-old former infantry squad leader, has been indic🏅ted on charges of second-ಞdegree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for Neely’s death in the lightening-rod case.
He remains free on $100,🏅000 bail, but fac♔es up to 19 years behind bars if convicted.
Penny has said he didn’t mean to kill Neely, but that he😼 felt he had to step in for the safety of other passengers as Neely was throwing trash at riders and threatening them 🏅as they moved away from him.
In addition to trying to establish the danger Neely posed in their motion to dismiss, Penny’s attorney’s also attacked testimony from Cynthia Harris, the medical examiner who inspected Neely’s corpse.
Harris told tౠhe grand jury that Neely died from compression of the neck, which she attributed to the chokehold.
But she didn’t show how the injuries to Neely’s neck proved that he died from asphyxiation – or if the chokehold had severed the blood supply to his brain, or strangled him by cutting off his windpipe, they claimed.
“Instead, she opined generally as to the significance of interfering with either one,” the lawyers wrote. “This amounts to conjecture.”
She also could not give a time of death — leaving unclear whether Neely died on the train ca𒁏r floor or in the hospital an hour later, the filing states.
“In this case … Harris failed to offer any evidence or opinion that the victim died from asphyxiation due to the chokehold,” the attorneys wrote.
“She merely testified that asphyxiation could happen by a chokehold and that she believed that Mr. Neely died from a chokehold,” they said. “The fact that she did not testify that he did in fact die from asphyxiation, can only be explained by a lack of evidence to support such a conclusion.”
Representatives for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment Tuesday, saying that they would respond in court papers.
Penny’s next court date is Oct. 25.
Additional reporting by Kyle Schnitzer
