Daniel Penny's 30-minute police interrogation reveals he told officers he was afraid Jordan Neely might make good on his threats when he grabbed him in a headlock last year.
Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran who was studying architecture in New York City, is on trial for the death of Neely, a 30-year-old homeless drug abuser with schizophrenia who barged onto a subway car and started shouting threats.
NYPD Detectives Michael Medina and Brian McCarthy interviewed Penny shortly after the incident. They read him his Miranda warning but didn't tell him Neely had died.
Portions of the interview had been played in pretrial hearings, but the court released the full tape last week once it became part of the public record at trial.
While some experts believe Penny may take the witness stand in his own defense, others believe that's a risky move his lawyers may want to avoid.
Although he's given multiple media interviews since the incident, the video of his initial interrogation contains the most candid comments he's made on the case that are publicly available.
NYPD Detectives Michael Medina and Brian McCarthy spoke with Penny at the Fifth Precinct building in Manhattan.
After a few minutes of small talk, McCarthy read Penny a Miranda warning. At that point, Penny was unaware that Neely had died as a result of the chokehold.
He waived his right to an attorney and spends the next 25 minutes talking with the New York detectives about what happened on the F train that day.
Penny told the investigators he was on his way to the gym after class — he was studying architecture in Brooklyn — when Penny barged onto the train.
"Some guy came in, and he's like with his jacket off and he's like, ‘I’m gonna kill everybody. I'm gonna go to prison forever. I don't care,'" Penny said.
He said he exchanged looks with the person next to him and asked them to hold his phone. He took his earbuds out. Then he grabbed Neely from behind in a headlock.
"I just kind of, like, grabbed him from behind," he said.
"Hmm," one of the detectives interrupted.
"Because he was acting like a lunatic, like a crazy person," Penny continued. "So, and he was rolling around the floor. And at that point, the train stopped. I was like, ‘Someone call the cops,’ and he's still, like rolling around, still going crazy. I had two other guys kind of help me just kind of keep him from going nuts. And yeah, that's when you guys came."
Later, he said he doesn't usually get involved with "crackheads" but he felt the need to intervene due to Neely's threats.
"He's like, 'If I don't get this, this and this, I'm going to go to jail forever,'" Penny said. "He was talking gibberish, you know, but these guys are pushing people in front of trains and stuff."
In the year before Neely's death, more than 20 people had been shoved onto the subway tracks in New York City, FOX 5 New York reported previously — many of them by mentally ill homeless suspects.
Penny returns to court Thursday, where he is fighting charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted on the top charge.
His defense argues Neely's death was justified because Penny was protecting himself and other people on the train.
