Hours after a Manhattan jury acquitted Daniel Penny Monday of criminal charges for the choking death of homeless Black man Jordan Neely on an F Train last year, Mayor Eric Adams said that Neely “should not have had to die” but that he respects the jury’s decision.
Adams, during his weekly off-topic media briefing on Dec. 9, noted that Neely shares a first name with his own son — Jordan Coleman — to illustrate what he saw as his connection to the incident. He then appeared to blame Neely’s death on a failing mental health care system at both the city and state levels — as Neely suffered from mental illness and had cycled in and out of psychiatric care for many years before his death.
“These incidents that happen in the city are not only professional, but they’re personal, and we take that with us. Jordan should not have had to die,” Adams said. “A jury of his peers heard the case, saw all of the facts, saw all of the evidence, and made a decision. I join DA [Alvin] Bragg in stating that I respect the process.”
The mayor’s comments came not long after the jury found Penny “not guilty” of a criminally negligent homicide charge.
The jury cleared Penny of that charge on Monday morning after Judge Maxwell Wiley had dismissed a second and more serious manslaughter charge against him on Friday. The judge dismissed that count because the jury had deadlocked on a verdict following over three days of deliberations.
Penny was on trial for a May 1, 2023 incident — caught on a viral video — in which he placed Neely in a chokehold that the city Medical Examiner’s office found to be fatal. He argued that he was acting in self-defense as Neely was behaving erratically and threatening towards the other passengers in the subway car.
The case became a flashpoint, representing differences in race, class and how to confront those undergoing psychiatric episodes on the city’s subways. It also raised questions of whether New Yorkers should preemptively take matters into their own hands if they perceive someone to be a threat.
In the weeks immediately following Neely’s death, Mayor Adams faced heat over not calling for Penny to be charged. At the time, Adams gave a lengthy address calling for more structural changes to New York’s mental health care system that did not mention Penny by name.
The mayor also sought to clarify his comments last week that Penny did “what we should have done as a city” in his interaction with Neely.
“We should have been standing up for those passengers,” Adams said. “That’s what we should have done for the city. And standing up for those passengers [means addressing] the mental health crisis in this city and not just wait for incidents to happen. And the determination that he stood uprightly or wrongfully, that came in front of a jury of his peers.”
Adams also indicated that he does not believe the verdict will encourage more New Yorkers who encounter those they perceive as threats on the subways to take matters into their own hands, as Penny did.
“I think that oftentimes, people make these decisions when they are in the midst of it, and there’s a desire of New Yorkers to help out those in need, and there’s a desire of New Yorkers to always respond when they believe it’s necessary,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s going to change in any way.”
However, Neil Berry, a leader with the left-wing group Vocal NY, said Adams’ and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s tough-on-crime rhetoric led Penny to place Neely in a chokehold.
“This is just a continuous failure to recognize Jordan Neely as a human being. Instead of protecting vulnerable people – and Jordan Neely certainly was one – the mayor and the governor have created a level of pessimism and fear that fosters vigilante justice,” Berry said in a statement. “This decision sets the stage for this to happen again: for more homeless people, or even just loud kids, to be shot or killed because they are perceived to be potential threats.”
