As of Sunday, May 14, a fundraising for Daniel Penny had nearly reached the $2 million mark. According to his attorneys, funds have kept coming in because the subway chokehold case “struck a chord” in people’s minds all over the country.
Inflicting a fatal chokehold on Jordan Neely, Penny, a former Marine, killed him on May 1. Homeless Neely had been yelling at passing people that he was thirsty and hungry and that it didn’t matter if he got arrested.
The “Legal Defense Fund” for Penny, 24, charged with manslaughter in the death of Neely — had eclipsed $1.8 million in donations by Sunday evening, his lawyers say.
“The outpouring of support for Danny is always measured by the amount raised, but what is even more telling is that tens of thousands of people from all over the world have taken the time to donate,” Penny’s attorney, Steven M. Raiser, wrote in an email to The New York Post.
“This level of support demonstrates that the situation forced upon him in that subway car earlier this month, and his subsequent arrest, has struck a chord in the psyche of New Yorkers and has been echoed nationwide,” Raiser wrote.
“The message being sent by this massive showing of support is that any attempt to undermine the right and duty to protect one another against an imminent threat will be challenged.”
Penny was charged Friday with second-degree manslaughter for allegedly choking and killing Neely, 30, a former street performer with a long history of mental illness, during a May 1 subway ride on an F train in Manhattan. He was released on $100,000 bail.
Penny’s attorneys, who launched the GiveSendGo campaign on his behalf, have said he didn’t intend to kill Neely when he put him on chokehold and was merely trying to defend himself and fellow straphangers from a threatening homeless man.
The fundraiser had raised some $1.4 million by Saturday night. Several donors wrote that they were praying for the former infantry squad leader.
“This guy is a hero in my eyes,” one anonymous donor wrote. “He should get a medal for what he did not jail time … We need to take our City back. God bless this guy for trying to help.”
Neely’s family has said Penny should be tried for murder. The city medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide, noting he died due to “compression of neck (chokehold).”
“He never attempted to help [Neely] at all,” the Neely family’s attorneys, Donte Mills and Lennon Edward, wrote last week in a statement. “You cannot ‘assist’ someone with a chokehold.”