Daniel Penny, who killed Michael Jackson impersonator on NY subway, to be charged with manslaughter

Della said:
Protect them from what exactly? Being yelled at? Neely was an American, too, and he wasn't abducting, robbing, or fighting anyone.

How much courage does it take a tall trained Marine to jump a small, unarmed, sick man from behind, particularly when others jump in to help? Neely had not touched a single person. Witnesses say he was shouting that he was homeless and asking for money.

Someone could have called the police and said there was a disturbance. Someone could have given him $20 and there's a good possibility he would have gone away. Wouldn't that have been better than killing him?
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Della, I think you may have exposed exactly how mentally ill, or those pretending to be mentally ill, make their living.

Leaving aside a citizen's right to pay for their subway ride and be left alone to travel maybe they should expect to support the mentally ill in this way.

1. Pay the transit company to ride the subway.

2. Mentally ill person gets on at the next stop and demands $20 to leave you alone. You give him the $20 and he goes into the next car to demand $20 more. You ride peacefully until the next stop.

3. Another mentally ill person gets on and demands $25 to leave you alone. You give him the $25 and he goes into the next car to demand $25 from another citizen who is just trying to get home.

What if you have 20 stops before your home stops and the mentally ill have learned that people will give them whatever they demand to keep the peace?

I think there are some other problems with your solution, Della.

Have you ever been threatened in public, at home, or anywhere? Personally, I think it would be very scary to be yelled at and have money demanded of me in a subway. I think most elderly people or children would feel that fear but perhaps you are different and you would be happy to help that poor man along in life with some of your retirement income. I think I'm pretty safe in saying that most older people couldn't afford to do that.

I would prefer to have the mentally ill removed from the streets and subways so that the sane can safely ride the subway and in lieu of that I say thank you to all able bodied men who are willing to risk their own futures to protect the weak.
 

Okay, for @Della I'm going to tell the revolting subway story I referred to. I was in my twenties. Subway a bit crowded but I got a seat. Along came this silent man with a bloody stump where his right hand should have been. It was wrapped in filthy rags. So was he, clothed I mean. He went from every sitting person to every sitting person sticking his stump right IN our faces, only an inch away. Some of us were touched in the face, brushed, not hit. Silent. You gave him dollars & he went away... no matter how awful this may seem to anyone I imagined just shooting him dead, and would have done if I thought I could have gotten away with it. He robbed me that day. I can never get him from my memory.

No, Mr. Neely did not deserve to die, but I believe Mr. Penny did not have the intent to kill him. It's a real scary mess in that subway sometimes and this just got out of hand. IMO.

These folks TAKE OVER the subway car between stops. One person comes in screaming, knowing for once he has power over people. It's horrific, and they know very well what they are doing. Not in any sane way, but they know they are terrorizing.
 
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I'm sorry that happened to you, Pepper, it sound horrifying. I was attacked on a bus when I was 19 by a young man who sat down beside me, then suddenly forced his hand up my skirt and started to assault me. I managed to fight him off, climb over him, and get off the bus, before he could follow me .... miles from my street. I don't think he was mentally ill.

The subways sound awful and I hope the police manage to get control of them and take the violent people, both sane and mentally ill either to jail or psychiatric hospitals.
Myrtle said:
I think there are some other problems with your solution, Della.
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My suggestion of giving Neely 20 dollars was not intended as a long term solution, but as a temporary stop gap in the moment. I think it's preferable to killing him.

I don't think the answer is to allow random people to be judge, jury and deliverer of the death penalty.
 

Della said:
I'm sorry that happened to you, Pepper, it sound horrifying. I was attacked on a bus when I was 19 by a young man who sat down beside me, then suddenly forced his hand up my skirt and started to assault me. I managed to fight him off, climb over him, and get off the bus, before he could follow me .... miles from my street. I don't think he was mentally ill.

The subways sound awful and I hope the police manage to get control of them and take the violent people, both sane and mentally ill either to jail or psychiatric hospitals.


My suggestion of giving Neely 20 dollars was not intended as a long term solution, but as a temporary stop gap in the moment. I think it's preferable to killing him.

I don't think the answer is to allow random people to be judge, jury and deliverer of the death penalty.
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I’m sorry you were assaulted on public transportation but I’m glad you told us, Della. I thought you were someone who had not experienced such fear but you did experience it and you still stand up for those who create problems for the peaceful subway riders. Remember, this man you champion slashed a 67 yr. old woman’s face.

So be it. I will just say that if rights to self defense and rights to defend others are taken away by those who want to protect criminals, mentally ill or not, then cities will become unsafe for everyone.
 
Maybe if the police would do their jobs, these kinds of things wouldn't happen. There are only 28 subway trains in NYC. Why not have a cop on each train maintaining order?
 
Myrtle said:
I’m sorry you were assaulted on public transportation but I’m glad you told us, Della. I thought you were someone who had not experienced such fear but you did experience it and you still stand up for those who create problems for the peaceful subway riders. Remember, this man you champion slashed a 67 yr. old woman’s face.

So be it. I will just say that if rights to self defense and rights to defend others are taken away by those who want to protect criminals, mentally ill or not, then cities will become unsafe for everyone.
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Well said! We have already ceded too much of our cities to criminals. Time to stand up and demand justice.
I would rather contribute $40 to Penny's defense fund.
 
While we might all want to kill anyone who scares us, I think it is important for society that anyone who takes another person's life should expect to have to truly justify it. I don't think being excited in the moment is adequate justification.

I once was riding a bus that had standing room only crowd in the section I was standing in. People weren't supposed to smoke but the guy squished in facing me was smoking and I asked him not to and he ignored me so I plucked the cigarette out of his hands and dropped it and stomped it. He smacked me in the face, then he took out another cigarette and I grabbed it. Then a big guy put the smoker in a chokehold and told him he wasn't going to hit me again, and he told me to hand back the cigarette, then he released the chokehold. Smoker guy and I stood frozen the rest of the ride to our stops. Luckily this wasn't in America so I'm pretty sure murder didn't enter any of our minds.
 
HoneyNut said:
While we might all want to kill anyone who scares us, I think it is important for society that anyone who takes another person's life should expect to have to truly justify it. I don't think being excited in the moment is adequate justification.

I once was riding a bus that had standing room only crowd in the section I was standing in. People weren't supposed to smoke but the guy squished in facing me was smoking and I asked him not to and he ignored me so I plucked the cigarette out of his hands and dropped it and stomped it. He smacked me in the face, then he took out another cigarette and I grabbed it. Then a big guy put the smoker in a chokehold and told him he wasn't going to hit me again, and he told me to hand back the cigarette, then he released the chokehold. Smoker guy and I stood frozen the rest of the ride to our stops. Luckily this wasn't in America so I'm pretty sure murder didn't enter any of our minds.
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The guilty presumption is obvious, he didn't take another person's life as the guy was breathing when taken to the hospital.
 
SeniorBen said:
Maybe if the police would do their jobs, these kinds of things wouldn't happen. There are only 28 subway trains in NYC. Why not have a cop on each train maintaining order?
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Perhaps there are 28 subway lines, not subway trains?

The system is vast and complex. There are 100's of stations, miles of station platform and public tunnels, tunnels btwn stations where many homeless live, stairwells, and many multi car trains running on each line. Some lines have both regular and express trains riding side by side.

Simply putting cops on cars only treats the symptoms not the causes of the homelessness and mental illness.
 
againstthegrain said:
Perhaps there are 28 subway lines, not subway trains?

The system is vast and complex. There are 100's of stations, miles of station platform and public tunnels, tunnels btwn stations where many homeless live, stairwells, and many multi car trains running on each line. Some lines have both regular and express trains riding side by side.

Simply putting cops on cars only treats the symptoms not the causes of the homelessness and mental illness.
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Yeah, you're probably right that there are 28 subway lines — not trains. From Googling, it turns out that there can be as many as 30 trains running on each line at peak hours.

So 28 x 30 = 840.

Never mind. :)
 
Myrtle said:
I’m sorry you were assaulted on public transportation but I’m glad you told us, Della. I thought you were someone who had not experienced such fear but you did experience it and you still stand up for those who create problems for the peaceful subway riders. Remember, this man you champion slashed a 67 yr. old woman’s face.

So be it. I will just say that if rights to self defense and rights to defend others are taken away by those who want to protect criminals, mentally ill or not, then cities will become unsafe for everyone.
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I'm not championing any particular man but the rights of all people. Daniel Penny knew nothing of Neely's criminal background when he put the choke hold him. For all he knew Neely was simply a homeless man shouting and asking for money. Are you saying that if you kill someone and then find out they did something bad in the past you can get away with the murder?

George Floyd had committed armed robbery in a home invasion where he held a gun against a pregnant woman's stomach and he didn't have the excuse of mental illness. Yet a jury still convicted Chauvin.

I hope the right to self defense never extends into the right to kill someone who seems like he might do something violent.
 
SeniorBen said:
On one hand, people have a right to be left alone. On the other hand, people trained to kill by the military don't have a right to kill civilians who aren't a deadly threat. Penny and the other passengers could have restrained Neely without killing him.
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Exactly. May he rest in peace.
 
in our democracies we have still not come up with a better system of a judge and jury - it's still going strong true and tried. Is it perfect? probably not but the best we have thus far. The final outcome will be of interest but the dead remain dead and then where they may have gone to is another interesting story ?
 
Della said:
I'm not championing any particular man but the rights of all people. Daniel Penny knew nothing of Neely's criminal background when he put the choke hold him. For all he knew Neely was simply a homeless man shouting and asking for money. Are you saying that if you kill someone and then find out they did something bad in the past you can get away with the murder?
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No, I wasn't referencing Neely's crimes in regard to what happened. I was referencing Neely's crimes in regard to your defense of a known criminal. It has been posted here that Neely had assaulted an elderly person in the past and his extensive criminal past has been posted here. He was arrested 42 times in 10 years. It speaks to his character or lack thereof.

As far as what Neely knew he only knew that there was a man shouting and threatening a shakedown of subway passengers in front of him and he chose to defend the innocent. A lot of good men may look at this and choose to let the innocent defend themselves in New York City if they can.

Daniel Penny is not charged with murder. He is charged with manslaughter. There is a big difference. He had no malice aforethought and those helping to restrain Neely spoke up for him. So did many others in the subway car.

I have no idea what a NYC jury may do with this. It may depend on how many ride the subway or have been threatened on the streets. Across the country people seem to think Penny is getting a raw deal. There is a fundraiser for him that crashed the servers and is now approaching $2 million. At least he should have an adequate defense team.
 
Penny will get the best deal we can give him - our judicial system - is there a better one we may have come across? perhaps in Myanmar or Russia or China or North Korea etc
 
davey said:
Penny will get the best deal we can give him - our judicial system - is there a better one we may have come across? perhaps in Myanmar or Russia or China or North Korea etc
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Exactly, Davey. I used public transportation including the Washington DC subway to get to work all my life, but good jury duty shouldn't depend on personal experience. Neither should it depend on popular opinion or likes on social media. Good jurors should only be interested in fair application of the law.

Our laws defining self-defense are very clear:

If the person seeking to use the defense were the initial aggressor, that person would not be able to successfully claim self-defense.
You can not claim self-defense if you had a chance to retreat. You can not claim you were in defense of yourself or others unless they were in clear and immediate danger of kidnapping, rape, arson or robbery.

In this case the jury will have to determine if the people on the subway were in clear danger of being robbed, if there were no other options and no other way of avoiding Neely. I think it's up to the judges whether or not Neely's criminal history will be allowed in court. Most of his arrests have been because he didn't pay the fair. I think that says more about his mental illness than his character. These days the judges tend to be against blaming the dead victim, no matter what his or her "character" is like.

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I must admit I am amazed at how people who were not present at that time of this incident, and don't know either of these people, can make a judgement on guilt or innocence. We have a system that will bring out both sides of the story. That jury is in a far better position to determine guilt or innocence.
 
davey said:
Penny will get the best deal we can give him - our judicial system - is there a better one we may have come across?
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We have a pretty good one, if not the best one of the better.

What bothers me a bit is sometimes I think sometimes prosecutions are brought for political or reasons other than the prosecutor believing someone guilty. Being charged with something like this has a big impact on a person, even a successful defense is quite expensive. And there is no place you can go to get your money and reputation back.

Even worse I fear sometime innocent people are brow beaten into taking a deal and admitting guilt to avoid a trial and possibly worse.

Prosecutors are smart people with lots of resources. We should be able to trust them to do the right thing.
 
Della said:
If the person seeking to use the defense were the initial aggressor, that person would not be able to successfully claim self-defense.
You can not claim self-defense if you had a chance to retreat. You can not claim you were in defense of yourself or others unless they were in clear and immediate danger of kidnapping, rape, arson or robbery.

In this case the jury will have to determine if the people on the subway were in clear danger of being robbed, if there were no other options and no other way of avoiding Neely. I think it's up to the judges whether or not Neely's criminal history will be allowed in court. Most of his arrests have been because he didn't pay the fair. I think that says more about his mental illness than his character. These days the judges tend to be against blaming the dead victim, no matter what his or her "character" is like.

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I'm pretty sure you can defend yourself and others if in imminent danger of death or injury and laws do vary by state.
 
Alligatorob said:
We have a pretty good one, if not the best one of the better.

What bothers me a bit is sometimes I think sometimes prosecutions are brought for political or reasons other than the prosecutor believing someone guilty. Being charged with something like this has a big impact on a person, even a successful defense is quite expensive. And there is no place you can go to get your money and reputation back.

Even worse I fear sometime innocent people are brow beaten into taking a deal and admitting guilt to avoid a trial and possibly worse.

Prosecutors are smart people with lots of resources. We should be able to trust them to do the right thing.
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Penny has earned my respect for standing up to a bully. I'm sure this will be dropped when the situation is correctly analysed since he probably saved many lives on the train. If we had more like him in our neighborhoods, we would all be better off.
 
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