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from https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/opinion/riders-testimony-puts-the-lie-to-das-cynical-race-baiting-in-daniel-penny-trial/

Rider’s testimony puts the lie to DA’s cynical race-baiting in Daniel
Penny trial
By Post Editorial Board
Published Nov. 5, 2024, 7:13 p.m. ET

Former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny returns to the Manhattan Criminal
Courtroom after a break for jury selection in his trial for the death of
Jordan Neely.
REUTERS
Daniel Penny has been smeared as a vigilante and a racist, but the truth
is slowly being revealed at his trial: The Marine vet tried to do the
right thing and protect others in an impossible situation — and got
arrested and charged with manslaughter for it.

On May 1, 2023, mentally ill homeless man Jordan Neely charged onto an F
Train and began ranting at his captive fellow passengers.

Witnesses have said that Neely claimed he “didn’t care about going back
to jail” and ominously warned that “someone is going to die today”
before Penny put him into a hold to subdue him, which led to Neely’s
death after police arrived.

Should Daniel Penny be found not guilty?
The prosecution wants jurors to believe that Penny was overzealous, that
he overreacted to Neely’s threats.

Most of all, the DA’s office wants to remind jurors that Penny is white
and Neely was black, as Assistant DA Jillian Shartrand did when she
repeatedly referred to Penny as “the white man” in court.

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The intent of that is obvious: Make this case about race, not safety.

But the prosecution’s own first witness threw cold water on that cynical tactic.

On Monday, high-school student Ivette Rosario, who caught a shaky video
of the encounter as she trembled with fear, testified that Neely’s
menacing made her so nervous she thought she was “going to pass out,”
and noted: “I’ve been in situations on the train where stuff was said,
but not like this.”

Rosario thought she was in real danger, as many others on that train
likely did.

That was what made Penny leap into action, not his skin color or Neely’s.

Neely’s story is a tragic one: He had a history of mental illness and
was even hospitalized under a plea deal in an assault case, yet was
allowed to sign himself out of inpatient treatment.

If there’s a villain in this case, it’s the inept and hands-off mental-health system that let Neely be on the streets that day, instead
of in a psychiatric bed.

It’s a justice system that cares more about race than keeping New
Yorkers (of all races) safe.

Rosario made another important point for the defense: Even though in her
video, other passengers can be heard telling Penny to let go of Neely,
she said she didn’t hear the protests “in the moment” on the train.

Likely because it was a chaotic, harrowing situation that no one on that
train car should have been in.

We’ll never know if Neely would have followed through on the threats he
made on the train that day, but one thing’s for sure: The city’s refusal
to do its job led to Neely’s death.

Gotham’s broken mental-health system and loony leftism should be on
trial, not Daniel Penny.

Filed under daniel penny editorial homelessness jordan neely mental
illness subway trials 11/5/24
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