Legal professionals for Jordan Neely's household say Daniel Penny, the person who put him in a lethal chokehold on an NYC subway, must be charged with homicide

• Attorneys for Jordan Neely’s household say Daniel Penny must be charged with homicide.
• Penny has been charged with manslaughter for the chokehold subway loss of life of Neely. 
• “Justice appears like a conviction and justice appears like a conviction for homicide,” lawyer Lennon Edwards stated.

Attorneys for the household of Jordan Neely argued on Friday that Daniel Penny — the previous Marine arrested for placing the Black homeless man in a deadly chokehold on a New York Metropolis subway — ought to have been charged with homicide as a substitute of manslaughter. 

“Justice appears like a conviction and justice appears like a conviction for homicide,” lawyer Lennon Edwards stated throughout a press convention on Friday alongside Neely’s devastated members of the family. 

Edwards stated that Penny “deliberately selected a method to make use of that’s designed to chop off air” when he went after Neely aboard an F prepare on Might 1 and positioned him in a chokehold, killing him. 

“He selected to proceed to carry that chokehold minute after minute, second after second till there was no life left in Jordan Neely,” Edwards stated of Penny. “That is the selection that he made and he did it deliberately, so we imagine that the conviction must be for homicide as a result of that is intentional.”

One other legal professional representing Neely’s household, Donte Mills, added that Penny might have chosen to let go of Neely, however did not.

“He needed to know he would die. He needed to,” Mills stated. 

Penny, 24, turned himself in to the New York Police Division’s fifth Precinct in decrease Manhattan Friday morning and was arrested on a cost of second-degree manslaughter in connection to the loss of life of 30-year-old Neely.  

Throughout Penny’s arraignment at Manhattan Legal Courtroom, Assistant District Lawyer Joshua Steinglass stated that Penny held Neely for a number of minutes, even after he stopped transferring. 

Witnesses to the lethal ordeal have stated Neely was screaming about being hungry and thirsty earlier than Penny put him in a chokehold.

Steinglass stated on the arraignment that “a number of witnesses noticed Mr. Neely making threats and scaring passengers” earlier than Penny confronted him from behind and “positioned him in a chokehold, taking him right down to the bottom.”

When the subway arrived on the subsequent cease in Manhattan, Penny “continued to carry Mr. Neely within the chokehold for a number of minutes,” Steinglass stated. 

Two different males on the prepare then “aided” Penny “by restraining Mr. Neely’s arms,” the prosecutor stated. 

“Sooner or later, Mr. Neely stopped transferring,” stated Steinglass, explaining, “The defendant continued to carry Mr. Neely for a interval after which launched him.”

First responders who arrived on the scene rushed an unresponsive and unconscious Neely to an area hospital the place he was pronounced lifeless. 

The New York Metropolis Workplace of the Chief Medical Examiner dominated that Neely died because of “compression of neck” and categorized his loss of life as a murder. 

Penny, who was captured on cellphone video placing Neely within the chokehold, was launched on $100,000 bond following his courtroom look. Penny has been required to give up any passports inside 48 hours and should get permission from the courtroom if he desires to depart the state of New York. 

If convicted of manslaughter, Penny would face a minimal of three-and-a-half years in jail, and as a lot as 15 years behind bars. 

“Ask your self, is that sufficient? Is that sufficient for somebody who choked any individual out on the prepare and took their life?” Mills stated throughout his Friday press convention. 

Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg stated in a press release on Friday that his workplace “decided there was possible trigger to arrest Daniel Penny and arraign him on felony prices” after evaluating the “out there information and proof” within the case. 

“Jordan Neely ought to nonetheless be alive right this moment, and my ideas proceed to be together with his household and family members as they mourn his loss throughout this extraordinarily painful time,” Bragg stated.