NEW YORK — It took more than a week for Daniel Penny to go from an anonymous Marine from suburban Long Island to criminal defendant in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely aboard an F train in Lower Manhattan.
But within hours of being charged in the controversial Manhattan killing, Penny, who is white, was getting shout-outs from Republican presidential candidates and big bucks donations from right-wing culture warriors. He is free on $100,000 bond.
Kid Rock, the Trump-friendly rock star, gave $10,000 to Penny’s legal defense fund, taking an expletive-tinged shot at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for deciding to charge the attacker.
Conservative podcaster Tim Pool upped the ante Wednesday by giving $20,000 and shifted to backing Penny after initially criticizing his decision to live in New York in the first place.
In all, the kitty has swelled to more than $2.6 million, a figure that reflects the emotive nature of the killing and the reactions to it, in the New York metro area and nationwide.
As he faces potential indictment, Penny has joined the growing list of lightning rod figures in the nation’s culture wars, where political and racial divisions drive an increasingly polarized dialogue. Even in New York, a largely liberal stronghold, the debate around whether Penny was justified in his actions led to sharp division and debate
The caught-on video episode on the F train falls squarely into the GOP playbook as it tries to paint liberal America as soft-on crime and more concerned with the rights of perpetrators than potential victims. Although there is no indication Neely physically assaulted anyone prior to Penny grabbing him from behind, Neely had an extensive criminal record and prosecutors said passengers reported feeling frightened by his behavior.
Following Penny’s arrest, his lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, played up his ties to the community and military service in discussing his surrender.
“He did so voluntarily and with the sort of dignity and integrity that is characteristic of his history of service to this grateful nation,” said Kenniff. “... He has his head help up high.”
Fear of rising crime, real or imagined, has long been a potent political issue for Republicans, who claim liberal coddling has allowed crime to skyrocket in big cities nationwide. New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin hit the issue hard in his closer-than-expected 2022 campaign against Gov. Kathy Hochul.
While many in New York see Penny as a killer who overwhelmed a man who’d struggled with homelesness and mental illness, others — including many on the right — see his decision to stand up and get involved as heroic.
Former President Donald Trump portrayed Penny as a hero and said he was defending fellow New York subway riders.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his closest Republican presidential rival, called Penny a “good Samaritan.”
Long shot candidate Vivek Ramaswamy chipped in $10,000 to Penny’s fund.
Right-wing firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., hailed Penny as the “Subway Superman.”
In an highly polarized nation, the Penny case echoes that of Kyle Rittenhouse, the young white gunman who killed two Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was tried and cleared of murder, and is now a hero to conservatives and gun rights advocates.
The episode has also been compared to other racially charged Big Apple tabloid dramas, like the Bernie Goetz subway shooting.
“It’s already in the political realm and it certainly will have an impact on public opinion, one way or the other,” said Doug Muzzio, a Baruch College political scientist. “What we don’t know yet is how much of an impact it will have and which way.”
Democrats counter that the GOP is exploiting racism and to gain votes among white voters, especially in political battleground suburbs like Penny’s Long Island.
Fear of supposedly rising New York crime was successfully used by the GOP in the 2022 midterm elections to nearly unseat Gov. Hochul and sweep six Democratic congressional seats in the suburbs and upstate swing districts.
Democrats are mounting a major push to retake those seats and grab back the House of Representatives, an effort that will focus on well-educated voters in suburbs that have that been generally trending toward the left in recent decades.
Leonard Levy, a Hofstra professor who studies political trends in suburbia, says he’s skeptical that the Penny case alone will have any enduring political impact.
But Muzzio says the next high-profile racially charged incident like the Penny case could well come during the heat of a high-stakes political campaign.
“It could have a profound impact,” he said.
