The white former U.S. Marine accused of manslaughter after applying a chokehold to an erratic black man aboard a New York City subway train said he acted to protect other passengers.
Penny spoke about the incident for the first time on Sunday in an interview with the Post Millennial.
Penny told the outlet that he was only “trying to protect passengers” last month by applying a chokehold to Jordan Neely, a homeless man with a criminal record of more than 40 arrests, many of which were for violence. Neely was wanted on an open warrant for an assault when he died.
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“He appeared to be on drugs,” Penny recalled in the interview.
“The doors closed, and he ripped his jacket off and threw it at the people sitting down to my left. I was listening to music at the time, and I took my headphones out to hear what he was yelling,” he added.
“The three main threats that he repeated over and over were ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ‘I’m prepared to go to jail for life,’ and ‘I’m willing to die.’”
Penny called that moment “a scary situation,” admitting that he was “scared for himself.” Yet he also said he was concerned for nearby women and children and knew he “couldn’t just sit still.”
Penny disputed the narrative floated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the left-wing media.
“Some people say that I was holding onto Mr. Neely for 15 minutes. This is not true,” Penny told the Post Millennial. “The whole interaction was less than five minutes. People say I was trying to choke him to death, which is also not true. I was trying to restrain him.”
Penny also maintained that the episode “was not about race,” as Neely was threatening passengers who were minorities.
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“Some people say that this was about race, which is absolutely ridiculous,” he continued. “I didn’t see a black man threatening passengers. I saw a man threatening passengers. A lot of whom were people of color.”
“The man who helped restrain Mr. Neely was a person of color,” Penny explained. “A few days after the incident, I read in the papers that a woman of color came out and called me a hero. I don’t believe that I’m a hero, but she was one of those people that I was trying to protect.”
“I didn’t want to be put in that situation, but I couldn’t just sit still and let him carry out these threats,” Penny added.
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