Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Marine Vet Chokehold: Hero or Felon?
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- 0:05Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
- 0:14Speaker 2: A so called good samaritan seemingly risks his own life
- 0:21Speaker 2: to save other people on a subway, and now he
- 0:26Speaker 2: is being prosecuted for homicide. What really happened on that subway?
- 0:33Speaker 2: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
- 0:35Speaker 3: Thank you for.
- 0:36Speaker 2: Being with us here at Fox Nation in series XM
- 0:39Speaker 2: one eleven. First of all, take a listen to our
- 0:42Speaker 2: friends at ABC seven.
- 0:44Speaker 4: In this citizen at video, police were told the man
- 0:47Speaker 4: who died was harassing passengers and making threats. That's when
- 0:51Speaker 4: a twenty four year old man stepped in and attempted
- 0:53Speaker 4: to subdue the man. A physical struggle ensued, leading to
- 0:57Speaker 4: the older man losing consciousness. He was rushed lenox Hill Hospital,
- 1:01Speaker 4: where he was later pronounced dead. The twenty four year
- 1:04Speaker 4: old subway writer was questioned by detectives and release pending
- 1:09Speaker 4: additional investigation and an autopsy.
- 1:12Speaker 2: What really happened when one man loses his life and
- 1:17Speaker 2: another man seemingly a good samaritan faces many years behind bars.
- 1:25Speaker 2: With me an all star panel to make sense of
- 1:27Speaker 2: what we know right now. But first of all, let's
- 1:29Speaker 2: go straight out to a New York reporter with the
- 1:32Speaker 2: New York Daily News dot com.
- 1:34Speaker 3: Janan Fisher, Jaya, thank you for being with us.
- 1:37Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
- 1:38Speaker 3: Jana.
- 1:38Speaker 2: What's your understanding of what happened on that subway?
- 1:42Speaker 5: So it was on May first, as a Monday, around
- 1:45Speaker 5: two thirty on the f train at Jordan Deely, who
- 1:51Speaker 5: is a homeless man with a history of mental illness,
- 1:55Speaker 5: got on the train at the second avenue. Who stopped
- 2:00Speaker 5: wrote it one stop?
- 2:01Speaker 3: Well hold on, who wha whah wah wait wait, well,
- 2:03Speaker 3: let me understand something.
- 2:04Speaker 2: Guys with me from the New York Daily News, Jane
- 2:08Speaker 2: and Fisher Jane. And when you're saying second Avenue, where
- 2:12Speaker 2: on second Avenue?
- 2:14Speaker 3: Did he have the subway?
- 2:15Speaker 5: Sorry? Yeah, this is in Manhattan. This is downtown Manhattan
- 2:18Speaker 5: in New York City.
- 2:20Speaker 3: You're crossing with a second one.
- 2:22Speaker 5: It was second Avenue. And I guess Houston is where
- 2:25Speaker 5: the subway stomp is.
- 2:27Speaker 2: Not too far at all from NYU, the village, so
- 2:33Speaker 2: potentially on this train would be I guess students in
- 2:39Speaker 2: the middle of the workday, people going back and forth.
- 2:42Speaker 2: The city so so congested with traffic sometimes the only
- 2:48Speaker 2: way to get back and forth and make it on
- 2:50Speaker 2: time is a subway. I've often joked with my husband
- 2:56Speaker 2: and my children, should we walk or do we have
- 2:59Speaker 2: time to take cab?
- 3:01Speaker 3: In other words, it's traffic is so bad, it's faster.
- 3:04Speaker 3: I just walk.
- 3:05Speaker 2: Wherever you've got to go, even if it's sometimes a
- 3:08Speaker 2: couple of miles to get there, because traffic is just
- 3:11Speaker 2: totally stopped. So at that particular hop, how close is that?
- 3:17Speaker 2: Let me thank Houston. What is around that hop right there?
- 3:20Speaker 5: You know? Let me see that's there's some restaurants, you know, barbershop,
- 3:27Speaker 5: hardware store, there's a I think CATS's Delhi isn't too
- 3:30Speaker 5: far from there, you know. It's you know, there are
- 3:34Speaker 5: some you know, bars and restaurants. It's you know, it's
- 3:37Speaker 5: a residential area.
- 3:38Speaker 2: Well, I mean when you say kats Is Delhi, that
- 3:40Speaker 2: says it all because I would totally catch a subway
- 3:43Speaker 2: to get to cats As Delhi.
- 3:45Speaker 3: Having gone to NYU.
- 3:47Speaker 2: I've been at that stop many many times getting from
- 3:51Speaker 2: let's see at that time, I was at Court TV
- 3:53Speaker 2: and hl N and no, just at Court TV at
- 3:56Speaker 2: that point, and would take the subway all the way
- 3:59Speaker 2: down to my law classes at NYU. So I'm trying
- 4:03Speaker 2: to imagine who all was on on the subway at
- 4:08Speaker 2: that moment.
- 4:09Speaker 3: Okay, I'm getting a picture. Go ahead, dear right.
- 4:13Speaker 5: So yeah, it's hardly a rush hour, but you know
- 4:15Speaker 5: it's it's getting there. And so mister Neely, who is
- 4:20Speaker 5: a busker, homeless man, you know, with mental health problems.
- 4:24Speaker 5: He often personated Michael Jackson in the forty second Street
- 4:29Speaker 5: in the subway station for loose change from tourists and commuters.
- 4:34Speaker 5: He gets on the subway stop at Second Avenue and
- 4:38Speaker 5: according to witnesses, he becomes, you know, alarm. He is
- 4:44Speaker 5: starting to rant. He throws his Michael Jackson jacket down
- 4:49Speaker 5: on the floor. He says he's hungry. You know that
- 4:53Speaker 5: he's tiers who doesn't care anymore. He'll go to jail.
- 4:58Speaker 2: Okay, white, white, white, Wait sorry, Janeen, Yes, ma'am, you're
- 5:03Speaker 2: just giving me so much information. Is again drinking from
- 5:06Speaker 2: the fire hygent too much, too fast? Let me understand
- 5:08Speaker 2: how quote down, You've got a guy with I think
- 5:12Speaker 2: forty four.
- 5:14Speaker 3: Priors on his criminal history, and.
- 5:16Speaker 2: He takes off his jacket, throws it down and says
- 5:19Speaker 2: he's ready to die.
- 5:21Speaker 5: That's according to witnesses.
- 5:22Speaker 3: Yes, okay, go ahead, and then what happens.
- 5:25Speaker 5: So, you know other you know, according to daily news reporting,
- 5:30Speaker 5: you know, the MTA recorded that people believed that there
- 5:35Speaker 5: was a guy with a knife on the train, there
- 5:37Speaker 5: was a guy with a gun on the train, that
- 5:38Speaker 5: there was a that there was a danger.
- 5:40Speaker 2: Wait, people are starting to call MTA metro transit What
- 5:45Speaker 2: does it stand for authority?
- 5:46Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, Metropolitan Transportation authority.
- 5:49Speaker 2: So people on the subway, trapped on the subway, you
- 5:51Speaker 2: can't get off right, are calling, I guess calling from
- 5:55Speaker 2: the emergency phone that's there on the subway.
- 5:57Speaker 5: I think they're letting the conductor know who's on the
- 5:59Speaker 5: train with them, that they're that there's a danger on
- 6:02Speaker 5: the train.
- 6:03Speaker 3: Did any train personnel come help?
- 6:05Speaker 5: I know they're they're you know, they're trained not to
- 6:08Speaker 5: call the authorities, not to intervene in those situations.
- 6:11Speaker 3: Okay, white whit white, white white.
- 6:13Speaker 2: So people are afraid and they're calling MTA Metropolitan Transit authority,
- 6:19Speaker 2: asking for help. They think the guy has a knife
- 6:22Speaker 2: for a gun. He says he doesn't care if he dies.
- 6:24Speaker 2: He's sick of it, he's had it, and they MTA
- 6:28Speaker 2: are trained not to intervene.
- 6:31Speaker 5: Well, they're calling, they call the police, and they, you know,
- 6:34Speaker 5: and the police, the you know, the properly chained police
- 6:37Speaker 5: would would intervene in that situation. So, you know, the
- 6:41Speaker 5: distance between Second Avenue and a lot of Broadway Lafayette.
- 6:46Speaker 5: You know we're talking about, you know, thirty forty seconds,
- 6:50Speaker 5: forty five seconds, maybe a minute to between train stops.
- 6:54Speaker 2: Now, you know, I've never seen forty five seconds between
- 6:59Speaker 2: one and another stop.
- 7:01Speaker 5: Pretty quick stop, less than.
- 7:03Speaker 2: One minute between stops, because in all my years of
- 7:06Speaker 2: taking the New York subways, I've never gotten from one
- 7:09Speaker 2: stop to the next in forty five seconds that quickly
- 7:14Speaker 2: as anybody on this panel gotten between one stop and
- 7:18Speaker 2: another stop on a New York subway in less than
- 7:20Speaker 2: a minute.
- 7:21Speaker 6: Never, never in my life, never two minutes.
- 7:26Speaker 2: Wait, do you want to rethink that answer? I just
- 7:29Speaker 2: love saying that when people are on the stand. Would
- 7:32Speaker 2: you like a moment to rethink that answer? Jane and Fisher?
- 7:36Speaker 2: Forty five seconds between stops, I've not.
- 7:39Speaker 5: Timed it, but you know it's a very quick stop.
- 7:42Speaker 2: Well, I can guarantee you it's not forty five seconds
- 7:46Speaker 2: between stops.
- 7:47Speaker 3: That's not happening, and very quickly. Don't go anywhere Janeen,
- 7:51Speaker 3: I'm here, believe it or not.
- 7:53Speaker 2: I agree with everything you've said except that forty five
- 7:55Speaker 2: second thing. Hold on, doctor Bill Smart with me, Forensic
- 7:58Speaker 2: medical specialist, police surgeon for the Louisville Metric PD, Medical
- 8:04Speaker 2: director for the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, Good gravy man.
- 8:10Speaker 3: Do you were sleep, doctor Smock?
- 8:13Speaker 2: How long does it take to aspixiate someone, strangle hang smother?
- 8:19Speaker 3: How long does it take to your dad?
- 8:21Speaker 7: Well, there's a well known progression. After you apply pressure
- 8:26Speaker 7: to the carotid arteries, things begin to happen. You are
- 8:30Speaker 7: unconscious in less than ten seconds, and because the cells
- 8:35Speaker 7: of the brain have no oxygen reserve, they die every
- 8:38Speaker 7: second they continue to go without oxygen. We know from
- 8:42Speaker 7: videotapes that you will go unconscious in that less than
- 8:46Speaker 7: ten second period and stop breathing somewhere between one and
- 8:51Speaker 7: two and a half minutes of pressure on the neck
- 8:53Speaker 7: blocking the carotid arders.
- 8:55Speaker 3: You know, doctor Smock.
- 8:56Speaker 2: That was brilliant the way you did that, because you
- 8:58Speaker 2: could have just said two minutes, but the way you
- 9:02Speaker 2: led me up to it, I didn't even want to interrupt. Okay,
- 9:07Speaker 2: two minutes, two and a half minutes.
- 9:09Speaker 7: Max, Yeah, somewhere between one and two and a half minutes,
- 9:13Speaker 7: so you will stop breathing.
- 9:26Speaker 1: Time stories with Nancy Grace.
- 9:31Speaker 3: Duncan Levin is joining me.
- 9:33Speaker 2: Former federal prosecutor, now managing partner at eleven and Associates.
- 9:38Speaker 3: Duncan, thank you for being with us. With you, Natty Duncan.
- 9:42Speaker 3: Do you have children?
- 9:43Speaker 8: I do?
- 9:43Speaker 3: How many for of them?
- 9:45Speaker 5: Little ones?
- 9:45Speaker 3: Boy? Girl?
- 9:46Speaker 9: What got you?
- 9:47Speaker 5: Girls?
- 9:48Speaker 8: And a boy? So they're starting to ride the subway.
- 9:52Speaker 3: So they're out there in New York ages by.
- 9:54Speaker 8: My youngest is seven, and then I have a twelve
- 9:56Speaker 8: year old and a fourteen year old.
- 9:58Speaker 3: What would you do?
- 10:00Speaker 2: Guy, clearly out of his mind, takes off his jacket,
- 10:06Speaker 2: throws it down, becomes erratic. You feel threatened. You've got
- 10:11Speaker 2: your seven year old, your twelve year old, and your
- 10:13Speaker 2: fourteen year old with you. What would you do? Would
- 10:16Speaker 2: you call MTA and hope that maybe they'd break their
- 10:19Speaker 2: policy and come help.
- 10:21Speaker 8: And that's the thing that everybody has to keep in mind.
- 10:23Speaker 2: Here, Oh wait a minute, Duncan Levin, that's why he's
- 10:27Speaker 2: such a good trial lawyer.
- 10:29Speaker 3: Look here, not here? What would you do? I mean,
- 10:33Speaker 3: because I tear him apart. I would go down.
- 10:35Speaker 2: Swinging bam if anybody got close.
- 10:39Speaker 3: To John, David or Lucy it's over.
- 10:41Speaker 8: Well, I think that that's right. But the question is
- 10:44Speaker 8: that we weren't there, and so that is what these
- 10:49Speaker 8: charges are going to be about is and what this
- 10:51Speaker 8: case is about.
- 10:52Speaker 5: Is whether.
- 10:55Speaker 8: That was the right decision to make in the time.
- 10:57Speaker 8: Only he knows he was there and there were witnesses there.
- 11:00Speaker 3: Okay, I can say where you're going with this, Duncan Levin,
- 11:02Speaker 3: and that's why you win so many cases.
- 11:04Speaker 2: Did you notice he did not answer, just for the record,
- 11:08Speaker 2: did not answer.
- 11:09Speaker 3: So Jane and Fisher, back to you, the poor thing.
- 11:13Speaker 3: I'm back on you now, Jana.
- 11:15Speaker 2: What do the witnesses, not the marine Daniel Penny, what
- 11:22Speaker 2: do the other witnesses say happened?
- 11:25Speaker 5: Well, you know the accounts very obviously, you know, like
- 11:30Speaker 5: I said that some people said he had a knight,
- 11:32Speaker 5: some people said he had a gun. That's what the
- 11:34Speaker 5: MTA recorded.
- 11:35Speaker 2: Oh I'm so glad they sat behind their desks and
- 11:38Speaker 2: recorded it all and did nothing but that said go ahead, right.
- 11:42Speaker 5: So there was a freelance journalist there that recorded the
- 11:44Speaker 5: aftermath and his account that he posted on Facebook was
- 11:48Speaker 5: that he didn't feel like that this man was a
- 11:51Speaker 5: true danger. So accounts very but there's definitely a you know,
- 11:57Speaker 5: indications that people were alarmed by Jordan Neely's behavior on
- 12:02Speaker 5: that train, that there was a you know, police sources
- 12:06Speaker 5: said that he was throwing garbage, uh, you know, and
- 12:09Speaker 5: that he was ranting.
- 12:10Speaker 3: Uh.
- 12:10Speaker 5: You know, there there's no report that he attacked anyone,
- 12:16Speaker 5: you know, that has not come out. Uh, you know
- 12:18Speaker 5: that anyone was confronted by him.
- 12:22Speaker 3: Got another question for you. I'm looking at the video.
- 12:25Speaker 2: I take it that's the one from Juan Alberto Vsquez.
- 12:28Speaker 5: That's correct.
- 12:29Speaker 2: I've been looking at that and I see someone, of course,
- 12:32Speaker 2: I see Daniel Penny.
- 12:36Speaker 3: And he has Jordan Neely in a choke cold.
- 12:40Speaker 2: And I see another male wearing a black jacket with
- 12:46Speaker 2: a white long sleeved shirt and a black band on
- 12:51Speaker 2: one of his ring his left ring fingers, suggesting he
- 12:54Speaker 2: may be married, also holding down Jordan Neely. He's not
- 13:00Speaker 2: trying to pull Penny off Neely. He's trying to pull
- 13:05Speaker 2: Neely's hands back.
- 13:07Speaker 3: Who's that?
- 13:08Speaker 2: I mean?
- 13:08Speaker 5: We are not we have not identified the other participants
- 13:13Speaker 5: in you know, in Indian too, because I.
- 13:16Speaker 2: Find that significant. It's not as if other subway riders
- 13:21Speaker 2: are trying to pull Penny off. In fact, they're trying
- 13:25Speaker 2: to hold Jordan Neely's arms down so he can't hit Penny.
- 13:30Speaker 2: Has anybody noticed that, I mean joining me is Wilbert Chapman,
- 13:34Speaker 2: former NYPD Deputy Commissioner and former commissioner the NYC Department
- 13:40Speaker 2: Transportation Commissioner.
- 13:42Speaker 3: Thank you for being with us.
- 13:43Speaker 2: Have you noticed that this other guy Okay, now I
- 13:46Speaker 2: know I can see him in full it's actually helping
- 13:50Speaker 2: hold NELLI back, And I see a guy standing over
- 13:54Speaker 2: them in jeans and an army jacket. It looks like
- 13:57Speaker 2: or maybe a leather jacket in the backpack. No, what
- 14:00Speaker 2: are you seemingly asking or saying?
- 14:02Speaker 3: Stop? Stop? Stop? You can't breathe? What do you say
- 14:05Speaker 3: when you look at this video, Deputy Chapman.
- 14:08Speaker 6: It's interesting that you have three individuals of doing one
- 14:12Speaker 6: and two of them are clearly were not detained or
- 14:16Speaker 6: questioned by the police to find out exactly what their
- 14:20Speaker 6: perspective on the incident was. Would you could deduce from
- 14:24Speaker 6: that that mister Neely was putting up quite a bit
- 14:28Speaker 6: of resistance or was in the process of threatening, although
- 14:33Speaker 6: that we don't have any information that says he physically
- 14:35Speaker 6: attacked anyone which would justify the use of the physical
- 14:38Speaker 6: courts against him.
- 14:39Speaker 2: Guys, let's hear more from our friends at Pigs eleven.
- 14:45Speaker 10: The suspects lawyers told us in a statement quote, when
- 14:48Speaker 10: mister Penny, a decorated marine veteran, stepped in to protect
- 14:51Speaker 10: himself and fellow New Yorkers, his well being was not assured.
- 14:55Speaker 10: He risked his own life and safety for the good
- 14:57Speaker 10: of his fellow passengers. The unfortunate result was the unintended
- 15:00Speaker 10: and unforeseen death of mister Neely. We're confident once the
- 15:03Speaker 10: facts are out, mister Penny will be fully absolved of
- 15:06Speaker 10: any wrongdoing.
- 15:08Speaker 2: We know that choke hold went on for two minutes
- 15:10Speaker 2: and five seconds, which is exactly what doctor Bill Smartt
- 15:15Speaker 2: was describing. Now we've just heard about Daniel Penny's background.
- 15:22Speaker 2: I understand he's a decorated marine veteran Jamin Fisher.
- 15:27Speaker 3: Why was he decorated?
- 15:28Speaker 5: You know, he had done one tour in the Marine Corps.
- 15:32Speaker 5: He was overseas and he did a tour you know,
- 15:40Speaker 5: you know, right in the Marines. I think it was
- 15:44Speaker 5: for let me see National Defense Service Medal Global War
- 15:48Speaker 5: on Terrorism, and he got the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal.
- 15:52Speaker 2: I thought he was deployed twice, but I'll find that
- 15:56Speaker 2: out right now. Okay, that's what we know about him,
- 15:59Speaker 2: Jane and Fish, Sure, what do we know about the deceased?
- 16:04Speaker 2: Jordan Neely? Taken a listen to Anthony Delrenzo.
- 16:08Speaker 10: Neely, who was homeless and suffering from mental illness, was
- 16:12Speaker 10: allegedly agitating fellow writers on May first. That's when Penny
- 16:16Speaker 10: took him to the floor for as long as fifteen minutes.
- 16:19Speaker 10: Thirty year old's death was caught on camera, raising an
- 16:22Speaker 10: uproar from the mayor to some police and community activists,
- 16:26Speaker 10: though one criminal defense attorney thinks the DA was forced
- 16:29Speaker 10: to cave to political pressure.
- 16:31Speaker 11: This is a political hot potato. There are people on
- 16:34Speaker 11: both sides of this that are upset about what's going
- 16:38Speaker 11: on here. And the obvious solution here was to present
- 16:42Speaker 11: it to a grand jury, present all of it, every witness,
- 16:46Speaker 11: every possible charge, including justification, invite mister Penny to testify,
- 16:52Speaker 11: and instead they've just charged him, which you know at
- 16:56Speaker 11: this point, Alvin Bragg owns this.
- 16:58Speaker 2: Let me understand, then, what happened And to Jaden Fisher,
- 17:02Speaker 2: did this go to a grand jury?
- 17:04Speaker 5: Not yet, It has not gone to a grand jury yet.
- 17:06Speaker 3: Haven't charges come down?
- 17:08Speaker 5: Yes, they arrested him on charges. That's correct.
- 17:14Speaker 3: Okay, guys, take a listen to Derek Waller.
- 17:16Speaker 4: Police say the man who was killed actually had forty
- 17:19Speaker 4: four prior arrests and in fact was potentially harassing people
- 17:24Speaker 4: at the time of his death.
- 17:26Speaker 3: And we can show you this map.
- 17:28Speaker 4: It happened Monday afternoon here at the Broadway Lofaiette subway
- 17:31Speaker 4: station with service for the BDF and m trained.
- 17:34Speaker 12: Neelie was a subway performer. He also had a history
- 17:38Speaker 12: of mental illness. According to witnesses, the day of his death,
- 17:42Speaker 12: Neelie was acting erradically and harassing passengers when police got
- 17:47Speaker 12: the initial nine to one one call. Video shows a
- 17:50Speaker 12: twenty four year old Marine veteran holding Neely in a
- 17:53Speaker 12: chokehold while other subway writers restrained him before he died.
- 17:58Speaker 12: Police did question the marine being seen in the video
- 18:01Speaker 12: and released him without charges.
- 18:03Speaker 2: So when police questioned Penny, they decide to release him
- 18:06Speaker 2: without charges.
- 18:08Speaker 3: So what more do we know.
- 18:09Speaker 2: About Daniel Penny? What can we Uncover. Take a listen
- 18:13Speaker 2: to our friends at crime online dot com.
- 18:15Speaker 9: Daniel Penny grew up in a middle class family as
- 18:18Speaker 9: the only boy in a family of girls. Penny and
- 18:21Speaker 9: his three sisters grew up in a three bedroom house
- 18:23Speaker 9: in Westslip on Long Island. Childhood friends say the Penny
- 18:26Speaker 9: household had an open door policy, welcoming all the boys
- 18:30Speaker 9: played basketball and hung out at the mall. Penny was
- 18:33Speaker 9: a star lacrosse player at West Dislip High School. In
- 18:35Speaker 9: twenty fifteen, he earned an MVP award during the annual
- 18:39Speaker 9: dan Daily Cup competition. Right after graduation, Penny joined the Marines.
- 18:43Speaker 9: He served for four years, deployed twice, and rose to
- 18:46Speaker 9: the rank of sergeant. Penny was honorably discharged in twenty
- 18:49Speaker 9: twenty one.
- 18:50Speaker 2: You know one thing I don't want to hear to
- 18:53Speaker 2: doctor John delatorrensed psychologist and mediator specializing in forensic psychology,
- 19:00Speaker 2: and you can find him at doctor John Delatory, Doctor Delatory.
- 19:04Speaker 2: What I don't want to hear in an investigation, a
- 19:07Speaker 2: criminal investigation are the two words political, hot potato.
- 19:10Speaker 3: I guess that's three.
- 19:11Speaker 2: Words because that has nothing to do with the evidence,
- 19:15Speaker 2: does it.
- 19:15Speaker 5: No, it's not supposed to.
- 19:17Speaker 13: And I think that's the crust of the issue, is
- 19:20Speaker 13: that it appears as though there is a lot of
- 19:23Speaker 13: politics being played on the ancillary aspects of these things,
- 19:26Speaker 13: where it's mental illness, or its veteran issues, whether it's safety,
- 19:30Speaker 13: all of these things are forcing of our law enforcement
- 19:35Speaker 13: officials to engage in necessary sort of space covering sort
- 19:40Speaker 13: of necessary c ya because of the political pressures that
- 19:45Speaker 13: are being forced upon them. Our just system is not
- 19:47Speaker 13: supposed to be influenced by politics, but very often.
- 19:51Speaker 2: You know, it's very disturbing to me Duncan Levin Duncan,
- 19:54Speaker 2: former federal prosecutor and managing partner Levin and Associates, is
- 19:58Speaker 2: that for some reason the district Attorney Bragg skipped the
- 20:03Speaker 2: grand jury.
- 20:04Speaker 8: Yeah, something that doesn't happen in every single case, but
- 20:08Speaker 8: in this particular case, it's really on the line, and
- 20:11Speaker 8: I think he wants to get more evidence before figuring
- 20:15Speaker 8: out defendibly how to go on this and what the
- 20:17Speaker 8: ultimate charges are. Right now, I think we need.
- 20:20Speaker 3: To explain why that's so unusual.
- 20:21Speaker 2: You say, it's I never prosecuted a single case ever
- 20:26Speaker 2: in two years as a FED, in ten years as
- 20:30Speaker 2: a felony prosecutor in superior court never ever prosecuted a
- 20:36Speaker 2: case that a grand jury had not handed down a
- 20:42Speaker 2: true bill. I didn't just go, hey, Jackie, I think
- 20:45Speaker 2: you committed a crime. I'm just gonna get my pen
- 20:48Speaker 2: and paper and I'm drawing up in a diamond and
- 20:50Speaker 2: then I'm going to prosecute you.
- 20:51Speaker 3: That never happened.
- 20:54Speaker 2: And I'm curious why the district attorney chose not to
- 21:00Speaker 2: take this to a group in a grand jury for
- 21:04Speaker 2: them to decide if there should be a formal charge.
- 21:07Speaker 3: Does that bother anybody other than me?
- 21:10Speaker 2: I mean, regardless of what a grand jury would have
- 21:12Speaker 2: done and died or no indict why skip a procedural
- 21:17Speaker 2: step and prosecuting this guy.
- 21:20Speaker 8: So it's unusual, but it's not unheard of. There are
- 21:24Speaker 8: cases that precede this way, like what well, there are
- 21:27Speaker 8: cases where they start prosecuting it in the New York
- 21:30Speaker 8: City Criminal Court and let it depend. There not enough
- 21:35Speaker 8: grand jury space for everything. That's not the case with
- 21:37Speaker 8: this case is the high profile case.
- 21:39Speaker 2: I mean, can you name one case, Duncan you say
- 21:42Speaker 2: that it happened?
- 21:43Speaker 3: When did it happen?
- 21:43Speaker 8: It happened in more routine cases regularly because people are
- 21:48Speaker 8: arrested on felony complaints that it's not enough time to
- 21:51Speaker 8: get grand jury time to have everything indicted.
- 21:54Speaker 3: On a homicide case. Have you seen it happen on
- 21:56Speaker 3: a homicide case.
- 21:57Speaker 8: I think it happens on probably a majority of homicide
- 22:00Speaker 8: cases in New York City.
- 22:02Speaker 3: Can you name one?
- 22:03Speaker 8: Well, I'm not in criminal court every day, but I
- 22:06Speaker 8: bet if you sat there enough of the day, you'd
- 22:08Speaker 8: see homicide cases come through that have not been indicted.
- 22:12Speaker 8: Usually cases are indicted before there's an arrest and then
- 22:15Speaker 8: they arrest them, or if there's an arrest, they're indicted
- 22:18Speaker 8: at some point after the arrest. So it's not usual
- 22:21Speaker 8: in New York City criminal court to have a case proceed.
- 22:24Speaker 2: In your expertise as a former federal prosecutor, did you
- 22:28Speaker 2: prosecute cases without a grand jury indictment.
- 22:30Speaker 8: I was the New York State prosecutor at the Manhattan
- 22:32Speaker 8: Diey's Office for many years as well, and I arranged
- 22:35Speaker 8: tons of murder cases that came through that had not
- 22:38Speaker 8: been indicted yet, So it's not that unusual per se.
- 22:42Speaker 2: Can you remember any particular one like a name? No,
- 22:45Speaker 2: I'm just thinking through why in a homicide case, and
- 22:49Speaker 2: a homicide case.
- 22:50Speaker 3: That has garnered this much attention.
- 22:52Speaker 2: Just to top it off, did the elected DA choose
- 22:57Speaker 2: not to use a grand jury? I find that very
- 23:00Speaker 2: very disturbing. But that said, now we find out more
- 23:05Speaker 2: about the case, it all seemingly hinges on what the
- 23:07Speaker 2: medical examiner says. Take a listener, friends at ABC seven
- 23:11Speaker 2: key here now is emy's reporting.
- 23:13Speaker 14: Former NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce says, the twenty
- 23:16Speaker 14: four year old man who subdued him may have indeed
- 23:19Speaker 14: been defending himself and others, but there are other factors.
- 23:23Speaker 15: How long was the actual holt was in that compression
- 23:27Speaker 15: that's going to be was he screaming to let me go?
- 23:28Speaker 15: Let me go? Hold these things?
- 23:30Speaker 5: A well?
- 23:30Speaker 14: Into that determination, a determination of whether or not he
- 23:33Speaker 14: made the right call which ended up costing someone's life.
- 23:36Speaker 15: The safest thing that it was cold nine one one
- 23:38Speaker 15: if you can down there or find it officer nearby. However,
- 23:41Speaker 15: save that those two instances, if there's an immediate need
- 23:45Speaker 15: to help someone, you do it.
- 23:46Speaker 3: I mean, that's heroic, but that's really scary. On the
- 23:48Speaker 3: same part, like you cannot just jump in and.
- 23:50Speaker 13: Be a good Smaritan, because good, smartians often wind up
- 23:53Speaker 13: being hurt themselves.
- 23:54Speaker 3: Okay, I'm just trying to take in what I'm hearing.
- 23:58Speaker 2: Did he actually say the safest thing to do is
- 24:02Speaker 2: call nine one one to Wilbur Chapman.
- 24:06Speaker 3: Is he serious?
- 24:08Speaker 2: You're on the subway, you feel threatened, call nine one one.
- 24:14Speaker 2: NIM one can't get there. The transit authority is not
- 24:17Speaker 2: going to do anything. That's their procedure. They're not going
- 24:21Speaker 2: to help. So why did he even say called nine
- 24:25Speaker 2: one one?
- 24:25Speaker 6: That's a question for retired chief boys. I don't quite
- 24:29Speaker 6: understand that. If there's imminent need to prevent someone from
- 24:34Speaker 6: being harmed and you're taking that appropriate action, of course
- 24:38Speaker 6: there's going to be consequences for it if as there
- 24:40Speaker 6: are in this particular case, But certainly the protection of
- 24:44Speaker 6: life is a lot greater than the need to call
- 24:47Speaker 6: nine one one. There are certain problems with communications underground,
- 24:51Speaker 6: with police deployment, and the amount of time it takes
- 24:54Speaker 6: for someone to rescue you. You've been talking about people's
- 24:57Speaker 6: family members. My family members were in danger, I would
- 25:01Speaker 6: certainly take action and then worry about what the consequences
- 25:04Speaker 6: are later. This is probably what's happened in this case,
- 25:08Speaker 6: it's a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances. Mister Neely should
- 25:14Speaker 6: not have been out in the subway. The system fails him,
- 25:18Speaker 6: and now mister Penny takes action as a result of
- 25:20Speaker 6: that is an unfortunate death for which he must be charged.
- 25:24Speaker 6: So really there's no winners in this, and certainly the
- 25:26Speaker 6: cooling nine to one one, it might have exacerbated the
- 25:29Speaker 6: situation and you might have had more loss of life,
- 25:32Speaker 6: or possibly the people who were who were felt that
- 25:36Speaker 6: they were in danger might have actually been in danger.
- 25:39Speaker 2: You know. To Janen Fisher joining us from New York
- 25:41Speaker 2: Daily Needs dot com, I noticed that the Wall Street
- 25:45Speaker 2: Journal referred to Neely as a quote obviously deranged man.
- 25:50Speaker 3: Let me get their exact wording.
- 25:52Speaker 2: When Daniel Penny stepped forward on a New York subway
- 25:55Speaker 2: to protect his fellow commuters from an obviously deranged man,
- 25:59Speaker 2: the former marine sergeant could not have imagined two weeks
- 26:02Speaker 2: later he would be pert walk in handcuffs outside the
- 26:06Speaker 2: fifth Precinct. Why are they saying he's an obviously deranged man.
- 26:11Speaker 5: Jordan Nearly had a history of mental illness. He was schizophrenic.
- 26:15Speaker 5: His dad said that he had autism. You know, he
- 26:20Speaker 5: had led a rather tragic lace. His mother was strangled
- 26:26Speaker 5: to death to death by her boyfriend in two thousand
- 26:30Speaker 5: and seven, when Jordan was I think fourteen years old.
- 26:34Speaker 5: The boyfriend put his mother in a suecase and left
- 26:38Speaker 5: her on the Henry Hudson Parkway and continued to live with.
- 26:43Speaker 5: Jordan testified against the boyfriend in the trial, you know,
- 26:49Speaker 5: the criminal trial.
- 26:50Speaker 2: Ag I'm saying, why is he now obviously deranged? According
- 26:55Speaker 2: to the Wall Street Journal, What was he doing that
- 26:58Speaker 2: made him look obviously direct changed?
- 27:00Speaker 3: Or was he well?
- 27:02Speaker 5: On the subway appears witnesses have said that he you know,
- 27:06Speaker 5: that he was threatening, that he was throwing garbage, that
- 27:10Speaker 5: he was erratic, unruly, that you know that he people
- 27:16Speaker 5: felt reported they felt threatened, they felt scared. Uh you know,
- 27:20Speaker 5: a woman motioned to her waistband and said that he
- 27:23Speaker 5: had a gun. That these were reports that the MTA
- 27:26Speaker 5: received about what was going on in the subway card.
- 27:29Speaker 2: I wonder too, Doctor John Delatory, psychologists specializing in forensic psychology,
- 27:37Speaker 2: if there is a mindset that people are already afraid,
- 27:41Speaker 2: they're already afraid of crime, They're afraid of what's going
- 27:46Speaker 2: to happen to their families, to their children, to themselves.
- 27:49Speaker 2: I mean, who's going to raise their children if they
- 27:51Speaker 2: get killed on the subway. So they're in a climate
- 27:55Speaker 2: of fear to start with, and then when neally erratically
- 28:02Speaker 2: they feel in danger. I mean maybe somewhere somewhere else,
- 28:08Speaker 2: citizens wouldn't be it wouldn't live in the climate of fear.
- 28:12Speaker 2: They wouldn't be afraid they're gonna die. But trapped in
- 28:16Speaker 2: a subway car dozens of feet below the surface, there's
- 28:20Speaker 2: nobody to call, and if you did, they wouldn't come anyway.
- 28:22Speaker 5: I do not find that unreasonable, Nancy.
- 28:25Speaker 16: I have one hundred percent.
- 28:26Speaker 9: Agree with everything that you're seeing.
- 28:28Speaker 13: Society right now is feeding on fear and commoditizing anger,
- 28:34Speaker 13: and so that when someone is acting out of their
- 28:37Speaker 13: mind right and I have no idea what deranged means.
- 28:41Speaker 13: I mean, I know technically it means mentally unsounded. I
- 28:43Speaker 13: have no idea what the Wall Street Journal is trying
- 28:46Speaker 13: to imply by saying what.
- 28:48Speaker 5: Is going on with Jordan Neely?
- 28:50Speaker 16: Homelessness, probably drug use, untreated mental illness. These are all
- 28:54Speaker 16: things that people just aren't used to seeing. And because
- 28:58Speaker 16: of that they otherwise, they stigmatize that individual as being
- 29:02Speaker 16: dangerous when the reality is they're simply.
- 29:05Speaker 5: Asking for help.
- 29:06Speaker 2: I don't know was he dangerous, because in my mind,
- 29:08Speaker 2: it's not what the medical examiner says that's going to
- 29:12Speaker 2: turn this case. It's was nearly a threat. Did the
- 29:19Speaker 2: people sitting around him feel threatened? And that is why
- 29:22Speaker 2: I brought up these other two guys. They weren't trying
- 29:25Speaker 2: to drag Daniel Penny off Neely. They were trying to
- 29:29Speaker 2: help Penny subdue Neely. And that tells me a lot.
- 29:33Speaker 2: It's not just Penny taking action against Neely. Does that
- 29:38Speaker 2: make it right?
- 29:39Speaker 3: I don't know.
- 29:39Speaker 2: Does it make it wrong? I would have to find
- 29:41Speaker 2: out exactly what.
- 29:42Speaker 3: Neelie was doing. Did he pose a threat?
- 29:46Speaker 2: Well, take a listen to Penny's lawyer speaking with our
- 29:50Speaker 2: friends at the five in our cut twenty three.
- 29:53Speaker 17: Well, the mindset is pretty simple. He was fearful for
- 29:57Speaker 17: the safety of those passengers when he acted. His mindset
- 30:01Speaker 17: was to keep his fellow pastors safe from attack. Nearly
- 30:06Speaker 17: entering the train and acting in a very violent manner, both.
- 30:11Speaker 3: Physically and with words.
- 30:12Speaker 17: He would say things to the effect that you know
- 30:16Speaker 17: I need certain things. I need food, I need this
- 30:18Speaker 17: or that, and if I don't get it, I don't
- 30:19Speaker 17: care if I go to prison for the rest of
- 30:21Speaker 17: my life.
- 30:21Speaker 3: And the passengers.
- 30:22Speaker 17: Actually have said that they interpreted that mean, well, when
- 30:26Speaker 17: would you go to prison for the rest of your
- 30:27Speaker 17: life if you kill somebody? So everybody got the message.
- 30:31Speaker 17: There was a period of time where the situation kind
- 30:34Speaker 17: of developed, so, you know, a period of time to
- 30:36Speaker 17: be able to observe mister Neely, you know, swinging his
- 30:40Speaker 17: arms at passengers, throwing his jacket down, making threats.
- 30:46Speaker 2: Okay, when does that rise to a level of threatening.
- 31:04Speaker 1: Time stories with Nancy Grace.
- 31:10Speaker 3: To Duncan Levin joining us, what about it?
- 31:13Speaker 8: Duncan, Yeah, I think he's got a very good case
- 31:16Speaker 8: that adrives us to the level. And that is why
- 31:19Speaker 8: I think that DA is taking its time and figuring
- 31:22Speaker 8: out exactly how best to put this case together, because
- 31:25Speaker 8: the law itself in New York says that it's killing itself.
- 31:28Speaker 8: Defense is legally permitted when an attack opposes an imminent
- 31:32Speaker 8: threat of physical harm or death. And so I think
- 31:35Speaker 8: that there is enough there that he has a defense
- 31:38Speaker 8: to this, because he'll say there was nowhere else I
- 31:41Speaker 8: could go. There was nowhere to retreat. I was in
- 31:43Speaker 8: a subway car. And look, it wasn't just me, it
- 31:47Speaker 8: was other people joining into Everyone there thought there was
- 31:50Speaker 8: an imminent threat that he was going to kill us.
- 31:52Speaker 8: All so that that is the case, and that is
- 31:55Speaker 8: his defense. And so you know, it's going to require
- 31:58Speaker 8: eyewitness testimony, and they believe me, they're going to have
- 32:01Speaker 8: everyone in that car testifying one way or the other
- 32:04Speaker 8: about whether there was a threat of harm.
- 32:06Speaker 3: Back to Jane and Fisher joining us.
- 32:08Speaker 2: Investigative reporter with the New York Daily needs Jane, and again,
- 32:12Speaker 2: thank you for being with us.
- 32:13Speaker 3: What are the other passengers saying, you know, the.
- 32:16Speaker 5: Other passengers, you know, it said that he had a gun,
- 32:20Speaker 5: he had a knife. They said he was acting erratically.
- 32:23Speaker 5: They said he was throwing garbage.
- 32:25Speaker 18: You know.
- 32:25Speaker 5: One of the passengers said that he had thrown his
- 32:28Speaker 5: Michael Jackson jacket on the ground. You know, he you know,
- 32:33Speaker 5: he said that you know, he was hungry, he needed footy,
- 32:36Speaker 5: that he was ready to die, and that was that
- 32:40Speaker 5: is all that we really understand about what he said
- 32:44Speaker 5: on the train and what he.
- 32:45Speaker 2: Did that so far is not rising in my mind
- 32:50Speaker 2: so far is not rising to a level of a
- 32:54Speaker 2: dangerous threat. But on the other hand, guys, we're not
- 32:58Speaker 2: on the subway. We don't know if he was menacing
- 33:01Speaker 2: toward women or moms or children. We have no idea
- 33:05Speaker 2: what happened.
- 33:06Speaker 3: And I do know.
- 33:08Speaker 2: Isn't this correct to Jamie Fisher that one of the
- 33:12Speaker 2: passengers actually stepped forward and thanked Penny.
- 33:15Speaker 5: There are some reports that a woman that was on
- 33:18Speaker 5: the train had wanted to thank him for his action.
- 33:22Speaker 5: That I not confirm that myself, but I had read
- 33:26Speaker 5: that report.
- 33:27Speaker 2: We do know that police for some reason are not
- 33:32Speaker 2: giving the substantiation that will be required in this case,
- 33:38Speaker 2: the details leading up to the choke hold. I'm curious
- 33:43Speaker 2: what you make of that, Wilbert Chapman, former commissioner, former
- 33:47Speaker 2: deputy commissioner, that people on the train actually thanked neally.
- 33:51Speaker 6: Well like of the thin possibility, because the level of
- 33:54Speaker 6: crime on the subway has certainly risen, and with that
- 33:58Speaker 6: you would have the rise and fear of passengers who
- 34:03Speaker 6: are on the subway, and a concern about the fact
- 34:05Speaker 6: that there are large numbers of homeless and mentally unstable
- 34:08Speaker 6: people who use the subways because they don't use the shelters.
- 34:13Speaker 6: As far as the police statement is concerned, it's incumbent
- 34:16Speaker 6: to final of responding police to take in depth statements
- 34:20Speaker 6: to be submitted as part of the investigation to determine
- 34:25Speaker 6: is their culpability on the part of misdepending or exactly,
- 34:28Speaker 6: more and more importantly, exactly what happened. What were the circumstances.
- 34:32Speaker 6: There are reports of knives and guns, where any found
- 34:35Speaker 6: and what made those individuals who thought they were there
- 34:38Speaker 6: were weapons involved, or that that mister Neely had weapons?
- 34:43Speaker 6: What made them think that? And does that does that
- 34:48Speaker 6: lead to a factual accounting of what they observed or
- 34:51Speaker 6: just an emotional reaction. Because the fear that's caused by
- 34:55Speaker 6: the environment being trapped in the subway trains with someone
- 34:57Speaker 6: who you know is unpredictable or you were assume is
- 35:00Speaker 6: unpredictable in their behavior.
- 35:02Speaker 2: That's really important in the fact that you just said unpredictable, unstable,
- 35:06Speaker 2: because when someone begins to act erradically, you fear the worst,
- 35:10Speaker 2: especially when you're protecting your children. You don't know what
- 35:13Speaker 2: they're going to do next, and that fear fact or
- 35:16Speaker 2: the reality that it is unpredictable and the person is unstable,
- 35:22Speaker 2: they can do anything. I'm still hung up on the
- 35:27Speaker 2: fact that two other men helped subdue Neally. They weren't
- 35:32Speaker 2: trying to drag Penny off, for instance.
- 35:36Speaker 3: We see in other cases where the crowd.
- 35:39Speaker 2: Is saying stop, he's choking, he can't breathe get off him.
- 35:43Speaker 2: In this case people are actually thinking neally and helping him.
- 35:49Speaker 3: So helping Penny.
- 35:51Speaker 2: I'm trying to sort out the facts and we're not
- 35:55Speaker 2: getting them. And that's further clouded by the fact that
- 35:58Speaker 2: there was no grandjury process.
- 36:00Speaker 3: The prosecutor skipped what.
- 36:02Speaker 2: Many people, including myself, considered to be a very important.
- 36:05Speaker 3: Part of justice.
- 36:07Speaker 2: Take a listen to our cut twenty four. Our friends
- 36:10Speaker 2: at the five Well.
- 36:11Speaker 17: We were told that there was going to be a
- 36:15Speaker 17: grand jury presentation and then that would take some time,
- 36:18Speaker 17: and it was going to be a very kind of
- 36:19Speaker 17: a deliberate process. It was not going to be rushed.
- 36:24Speaker 17: Then suddenly we got a call one night before Daniels
- 36:29Speaker 17: asked to surrender and said he's got to surrender to
- 36:32Speaker 17: the police department tomorrow. So at that point, where what
- 36:36Speaker 17: do you mean tomorrow? This was going to be a
- 36:38Speaker 17: long process.
- 36:39Speaker 2: Suddenly it's tomorrow, so everything was rushed, no grand jury proceeding.
- 36:44Speaker 2: Was a hastily drawn indictment that said there are formal
- 36:50Speaker 2: charges and it unfolds from there. Take listen to our
- 36:54Speaker 2: friends and our cut thirteen CBS two.
- 36:56Speaker 18: Just as expected, Daniel Penny turning himself into police here
- 37:00Speaker 18: at the fifth printcinc. Now he was charged with a
- 37:02Speaker 18: second degree manslaughter charge. District Attorney Alvin Bragg announcing that yesterday,
- 37:07Speaker 18: now take a look. This is video of Penny walking
- 37:10Speaker 18: inside of the precinct. He went in, he came back out,
- 37:13Speaker 18: headed to the Manhattan Criminal Court where bail will be
- 37:16Speaker 18: decided if it will be a set or not. And
- 37:17Speaker 18: his attorney says Penny turning himself in voluntarily.
- 37:21Speaker 19: An attorney for Daniel Penny, the man charged with second
- 37:24Speaker 19: degree manslaughter on the subway death of Jordan Neely, maintained
- 37:27Speaker 19: his client's innocence after he turned himself in at the
- 37:31Speaker 19: NYPD's fifth Precinct Friday morning, dealing.
- 37:36Speaker 10: With the situation, like I said, with a sort of
- 37:38Speaker 10: integrity and honor, that his characteristic who he is characteristic
- 37:42Speaker 10: is honorable service in the United.
- 37:43Speaker 3: States, pree Corps and hes pedals had held out.
- 37:48Speaker 19: The twenty four year old Long Island veteran walked out
- 37:50Speaker 19: in handcuffs just over two hours later and was arraigned
- 37:54Speaker 19: at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. He was released on one
- 37:57Speaker 19: hundred thousand dollars bail.
- 37:59Speaker 3: What is the truth?
- 38:01Speaker 2: Even amongst us experts here, we can't come to a
- 38:05Speaker 2: consensus because we don't know the facts. But I can
- 38:09Speaker 2: tell you this self defense, if proven at trial, is
- 38:14Speaker 2: a complete defense, as is defense of a third party,
- 38:20Speaker 2: defense of another.
- 38:22Speaker 3: We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye friend,