XPost: alt.america, alt.politics.republicans, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: francoluciano@nysu.edu   
      
   Google and Yahoo have sanitized all pictures of Dafna Yoran within the last 48   
   hours.   
      
   Daniel Penny “did for others what we would want someone to do for us” —   
   defending panicked subway riders from an “unhinged” Jordan Neely — when   
   he put the troubled homeless man in a fatal chokehold, his defense attorney   
   said Friday.   
      
   Penny’s lawyer Thomas Kenniff — during opening remarks at the former   
   Marine’s high-profile Manhattan manslaughter trial — painted his client as   
   someone who felt compelled to intervene to ensure other riders weren’t   
   harmed by the raving Neely,    
   making him not quite a hero but definitely not a killer.   
      
   “This is a case about a young man who did for others what we would want   
   someone to do for us,” Kenniff told the jury of 12 Manhattanites who will   
   decide whether Penny, 26, “recklessly” caused Neely’s death last May.   
      
   Prosecutors, in their own opening statements, argued Penny was indeed   
   “criminally reckless,” holding a 30-year-old Neely down for nearly six   
   minutes — despite knowing his actions could be fatal — because he didn’t   
   “recognize his humanity.“   
      
   “Mr. Penny was so reckless with Mr. Neely’s life because he didn’t   
   recognize his humanity,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran   
   told jurors.   
      
   Kenniff, during his 20-minute remarks, said his client heard Neely say “I   
   will kill” on the crowded F train and “there was only one thing that   
   Daniel Penny could do.”   
      
   When a “seething, psychotic” Neely first got into the northbound train on   
   May 1, 2023, he demanded food and money from other riders and spoke about   
   going to Rikers Island and being sentenced to life imprisonment — before   
   threatening to “kill,”    
   Kenniff claimed.   
      
   This all while the passengers’ “fear turns to outright panic” —   
   including a mother who huddled behind a bench to protect her baby, the defense   
   lawyer said.   
      
   Penny “summoned the courage” to act, and while “that doesn’t have to   
   make him a hero … it doesn’t make him a killer,” Kenniff argued.   
      
   But Yoran, during her 40-minute openings, blasted Penny for going “way too   
   far” when he “took it upon himself to take down Mr. Neely, to neutralize   
   him.”   
      
   Penny kept Neely “in a deadly chokehold” for five minutes and 53 seconds   
   after nearly all of the train’s passengers had fled when the train’s car   
   doors opened onto the platform, she said.   
      
   The prosecutor said Penny’s “indifference towards Mr. Neely, the man whose   
   life he was literally holding in his hands, caused him to disregard the most   
   basic precautions and needlessly kill him, long after any threat he had posed   
   had already    
   dissipated.”   
      
   Yoran laid out the evidence the DA’s office will present against Penny at   
   trial, including two videos filmed by bystanders — one of which showed the   
   “life being snuffed out” of Neely, which the prosecutor called “the most   
   critical piece of    
   evidence at trial.”   
      
   The first witness called to testify — in the trial that is expected to last   
   around four weeks — was NYPD Officer Teodoro Tejada, who responded to the   
   Broadway-Lafayette station, where the train was stopped, searched Neely for a   
   weapon, but only found    
   a muffin in his pocket.   
      
   Jurors were shown footage from Tejada’s body camera, showing medics   
   attempting to revive a lifeless Neely using various tools including, chest   
   compressions, CPR, a defibrillator and even a shot of the drug Narcan.   
      
   Tejada testified that Neely initially had a “faint pulse” when first   
   responders arrived — but that officers could no longer find a pulse minutes   
   later.   
      
   The video also depicted a composed Penny standing by calmly, chewing something   
   like gum while the EMTs worked on Neely.   
      
   Neely’s dad, Andre Zachery, cried as he sat in the courtroom gallery   
   watching the video showing his son lying dead on the dirty train car floor.   
      
   Jurors heard later in the day from two more police officers who arrived on the   
   chaotic scene, and two witnesses from the MTA, who were called to talk about   
   the transit authority’s inner workings.   
      
   Penny faces up to 15 years behind bars if convicted.   
      
   He has pleaded not guilty and has maintained his actions were not racially   
   motivated.   
      
   Kenniff has previously argued Neely’s toxicology reports confirmed he had   
   the drug K2 in his system when he died and was “experiencing a psychotic   
   episode” when he boarded the train.   
      
      
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