A Manhattan jury has acquitted Daniel Penny in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely at the end of a weeks-long trial that sparked a fierce debate about whether the defendant was – as others put it – a “vigilante” or a “hero”.
Penny, a 26-year-old former Marine who is white, was charged in the death of Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused Black man, which occurred on a New York City subway train last year. Penny held Neely in a lethal chokehold.
