New York City grand jurors on Wednesday indicted Daniel Penny in the death of fellow subway rider Jordan Neely, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The death last month has been a lightning rod on issues of mental health, crime and race.
The 24-year-old Marine veteran was indicted on a second-degree manslaughter charge in the May 1 confrontation with the homeless man, the sources said. A representative for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to comment on the matter to NBC News.
A spokesperson for Penny declined to comment to NBC News on Wednesday.
Penny and Neely were on an F train in Manhattan when Neely began engaging in “somewhat aggressive speech,” witness Juan Alberto has told NBC New York.
Neely told passengers that “he was hungry, he was thirsty, that he didn’t care about anything, he didn’t care about going to jail, he didn’t care that he gets a big life sentence,” Vasquez said.
Vasquez recorded a portion of the confrontation that appeared to show Penny putting Neely in a chokehold on the train’s floor.
Neely was a known subway busker who often performed as Michael Jackson.
He was unconscious when first responders reached him at the Broadway-Lafayette Street/Bleecker Street Station, before he was pronounced dead at a hospital, authorities have said.
The city’s medical examiner said Neely died from “compression of neck (chokehold)” and declared his manner of death a homicide — a routine term used by coroners and medical examiners to mean death caused by another person, but not a finding of criminal culpability.
Neely struggled with mental health for years, his family said, particularly in the years since his mother was murdered in 2007.
Penny, who is white, said he acted to protect himself and other passengers when he confronted Neely, who is Black.
“I didn’t see a Black man threatening passengers. I saw a man threatening passengers,” Penny said in a videotaped statement on Sunday.
The incident evoked memories of the 1984 shooting of four Black teenagers on a New York City subway by Bernhard Goetz, a white man who feared he was being mugged.
Dubbed “The Subway Vigilante,” Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder and assault and convicted on a weapons charge that landed him behind bars for eight months.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.