Source: Pacific Press / Getty
Daniel Penny, the 24-year-old Marine captured on video applying a chokehold that killed 30-year-old homeless Black man Jordan Neely on a New York City subway train, has spoken out publicly about the deadly incident that occurred early last month through a series of videos released by his legal team, according to Law & Crime. In the videos, Penny, who has been charged with second-degree manslaughter, predictably explained that Neely’s verbal threats justified the physical force that ultimately killed him.
“This was a scary situation,” Penny said in one of four video clips. “The three main threats he repeated over and over were ‘I’m going to kill you. I’m prepared to go to jail for life and I’m willing to die.’”
I’m just going to go ahead and point out that “I’m prepared to go to jail for life and I’m willing to die” are not actually threats as much as they are declarations of Neely’s desperation. Even if one does consider them to be threats, it sounds like, by Penny’s own admission, two of the “main threats” Neely made were against himself.
Penny also said that the chokehold he applied, which caused Neely to die by “compression of the neck,” according to a medical examiner, wasn’t applied for the amount of time “some people” are saying it was applied for.
“Some people say I was holding on to Mr. Neely for 15 minutes. This is not true,” Penny said. “The reason why there’s no video at the start of the altercation is because people were too afraid getting away from him.”
At this point, it’s obvious that Penny is going to mention that people were afraid as often as possible as if people being scared of a man who hasn’t physically attacked anyone or even displayed a weapon justifies swift and deadly action.
“I was praying that the police would come and take this situation over. I couldn’t sit still and let him carry out these threats,” Penny continued.
Penny also told Fox News Digital last week that if Neely “had carried out his threats, he would have killed somebody.” Of course, another way of saying that is: “I killed a man who hadn’t physically attempted to carry out any of his threats.”
It’s just a reminder that when it comes to justifying the violent deaths of Black people, the bar is low. It used to be “I was in fear for my life” because the Black man had a weapon, or because he physically attacked someone, or because he was resisting arrest, or because he wouldn’t comply. Now, “people were scared” appears to be all that is necessary.
And, of course, no whitespanation for why a Black person caused their own death would be complete without the white killer claiming it had nothing to do with race and that he couldn’t be racist because he’s OK with other non-white people.
“I didn’t see a black man threatening passengers. I saw a man threatening passengers–a lot of whom were people of color. A man who helped restrain Mr. Neely was a person of color,” Penny said.
So, basically, the “I couldn’t be racist” bar has also lowered from “I have a Black friend” to “there were other non-white people present.”
If Penny gets away with killing Neely, it will likely be because white vigilantes are often exalted as heroes by a certain segment of people in America, while Black people, homeless people and mentally unstable people (in this case, all three) are easily considered disposable.
This is America, and Black people are tired.
SEE ALSO:
Black Twitter Roasts Daniel Penny For Using Africa Road Trip To Claim He’s Not Racist
Jordan Neely’s Killer Had Help: Will The People Who Aided And Abetted Daniel Penny Be Charged Too?
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