JD Vance Invites Daniel Penny, Man Acquitted In Subway Killing, To Football Suite
Vice President-elect JD Vance announced Friday that his guest at this weekend’s Army-Navy football game will be Daniel Penny, the military veteran acquitted Monday in the subway chokehold killing of Jordan Neely.
Vance and Penny will join President-elect Donald Trump in his suite to watch the game Saturday in Maryland.
“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance wrote on social media.
“I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” he said.
Neely was homeless and struggling with schizophrenia in May 2023 when he frightened passengers on a subway car, prompting Penny, who is white, to restrain Neely, who is Black.
Penny placed Neely in a six-minute chokehold, continuing to restrict Neely’s neck for around a minute after he appeared to lose consciousness on the floor of the car. Bystander video showed others wondering aloud whether Neely was dying. Neely was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Penny’s lawyers argued that the chokehold alone wasn’t lethal; during the trial a pathologist testified in his defense that other factors contributed to Neely’s death.
Neely’s supporters have argued that his behavior on the train did not warrant a death sentence. On social media, some wondered whether honoring Penny with a seat next to the soon-to-be president and vice president of the United States could encourage more vigilante violence.
Penny told Fox News that he was in “a very vulnerable position” while restricting Neely, reasoning that if he let him go, the man could have potentially turned and hurt him. The bystander video, however, showed another man assisting Penny in holding Neely down.
Passengers said that Neely had appeared threatening on the train, allegedly expressing a willingness to hurt people. He was later found to be unarmed, and to have synthetic marijuana in his system.
During Penny’s trial, on charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, prosecutors tried to convince a jury that the former U.S. Marine used far too much force in the situation.
But the jurors deadlocked on the most serious charge of manslaughter, prompting a judge to dismiss the count last week.
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On Monday, they chose to clear him on criminally negligent homicide.
“It really, really hurts,” Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, told reporters after the verdict was read.
“I had enough of this. The system is rigged,” he added.
