At Daniel Penny’s Trial, Subway Passengers Describe Harrowing F Train Ride

Witnesses from the subway train said they feared Jordan Neely but also described the horror of watching him die in a chokehold.

Several passengers on the F train became frightened as the desperate man threw down his jacket and screamed that he was hungry and did not care if he lived or died.

One woman buried her head in a friend’s chest and prayed for the subway doors to open. A journalist in his 50s said he went into “alert mode” as the man, Jordan Neely, ranted in the half-filled car.

But when another passenger, Daniel Penny, a former Marine, grabbed Mr. Neely and held him down in a chokehold, some on the train had a different fear: that Mr. Neely was the one in danger, according to testimony and a 911 call that was played in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday.

“He’s dying,” a woman told Mr. Penny, in words captured on a recording of the call. “You got to let him go.”

The harrowing warning was played during the second day of testimony in the trial of Mr. Penny, 26, who is facing charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Prosecutors have accused him of killing Mr. Neely on the afternoon of May 1, 2023, when both men rode the uptown F train heading to the Broadway-Lafayette Street station in Manhattan. Mr. Penny, an architecture student who was on his way to the gym, has said he acted in defense of others on the train, but prosecutors said his actions became criminal when he refused to let go of Mr. Neely well after he went limp.

A passenger filmed the chokehold, and its release sparked fierce debate among New Yorkers. Some defended it in the aftermath of a surge of subway violence that followed the pandemic. Others said the death of Mr. Neely was a tragic symbol of the city’s inability to help people dealing with severe mental illness.

Mr. Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator, had been struggling with drug addiction and homelessness, and after his death, protesters demonstrated, at one point crowding onto subway tracks to disrupt service.

On Monday, jurors began hearing from witnesses on the train, in critical testimony that will help them determine whether Mr. Penny was justified in believing Mr. Neely was a deadly threat to the other passengers.

Prosecutors have acknowledged there was reason to fear Mr. Neely and even cause for Mr. Penny to intervene, but they said that the former Marine went too far when he held on to Mr. Neely’s neck for about six minutes as two other men held down his limbs.

In their opening statements, Mr. Penny’s lawyers portrayed Mr. Neely as “seething” and “psychotic,” saying that he terrified passengers and even menaced a mother shielding her son, who was in a stroller.

On Monday, one of those passengers, Ivette Rosario, 19, described being frightened more by Mr. Neely’s angry tone than by his words.

“I’m a pretty nervous person,” said Ms. Rosario, who was called by prosecutors. “Usually, I take the train, and it’s normal. I have been in some situations, but it’s not like that.”

When Mr. Neely strode quickly through the train, screaming, Ms. Rosario, who was standing next to her friend by the subway doors, buried her face in her friend’s chest.

“I just wanted the door to open so I could leave,” she said.

Once the subway stopped, Ms. Rosario got out and began filming with her phone. The footage captured her free hand, which shook violently as Mr. Penny remained wrapped around Mr. Neely on the floor. At 2:24 p.m., Ms. Rosario called 911.

During that call, she described Mr. Neely as the “one who was making the harm.” But the frightened cries of other passengers were also audible, including the woman who told Mr. Penny to let Mr. Neely go. Mr. Penny held on for several more minutes, according to prosecutors.

Ms. Rosario said she did not hear the woman’s warnings.

She said she never saw Mr. Neely brandish a weapon, touch or approach anyone, but she called Mr. Penny “the one who stepped up.”

During cross-examination, Thomas A. Kenniff, Mr. Penny’s lawyer, asked Ms. Rosario whether she had still feared that Mr. Neely might be dangerous, even after the subway doors had opened.

“I was worried,” she said.

Prosecutors also called Juan Alberto Vazquez, a 59-year-old reporter from Mexico, who started filming the chokehold soon after Ms. Rosario stopped. He described how Mr. Neely kicked his legs and struggled as Mr. Penny held on fast.

“He was moving his legs desperately,” Mr. Vazquez said. “And he tried to get loose.”

Mr. Vazquez filmed a five-minute video that captured the violent encounter, and the footage was widely circulated online and in news stories in the days that followed Mr. Neely’s death. Mr. Vazquez posted four minutes of his video on his Facebook page that night.

On Monday, prosecutors showed the full 4 minutes and 57 seconds to the jurors. Early in the video, Mr. Neely tapped one of the men standing over him on the knee as if trying to get his attention. His legs flailed as he kicked and tried to wriggle free. His arms reached out to the men on the train who were surrounding him. Most jurors watched with no expression, but one grimaced and put his hand over his mouth as he watched Mr. Neely in his final throes.

“He was making his last effort to get free, and then he started to move slower,” Mr. Vazquez said. “After that, he doesn’t move.”

Mr. Vazquez said he was unsettled by the “scene of violence” he had witnessed.

“There was a man grabbing another one,” he testified in Spanish as an interpreter translated. “And there was a man who had gone into the subway, and he was violently shouting. It wasn’t a normal scene.”

Mr. Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, put his head down while the video played on the screen, slowly shaking his head. Later, when the prosecutor began playing the video a second time with questions for Mr. Vazquez interspersed, he left the courtroom, his eyes red-rimmed.

During cross-examination, Mr. Kenniff reminded Mr. Vazquez of his initial statements to the police after Mr. Neely died. Mr. Vazquez had told detectives that when Mr. Neely began his rant, he thought of Frank James, a Milwaukee man who in April 2022 went into a Brooklyn subway train during rush hour and opened fire, wounding 10 people.

Mr. Vazquez confirmed that he had thought of Mr. James and “other acts of violence that I had seen in the trains of New York.”

Larry Goodson, another passenger who testified on Monday, said he was heading to work when Mr. Neely came into the car.

“I was not threatened,” he said. “He wasn’t threatening me, nor did I notice him threaten anyone else.”

But Mr. Goodson, 61, said he saw Mr. Penny clutching Mr. Neely in a grip that was “locked in.”

“I’ve been in many fights, and I’ve never seen a chokehold like that,” he said. Mr. Goodson then saw what appeared to be stains on Mr. Neely’s pants, which he believed meant Mr. Neely had defecated.

“If you don’t let him go, and that’s the state his body is in, you’re going to lose him,’” Mr. Goodson said he recalled warning Mr. Penny. He said he also heard one of the men holding Mr. Neely’s arms tell Mr. Penny that he could now release the chokehold.

Mr. Penny, he said, kept a tight grip.

“It was like he was in a whole other trance,” Mr. Goodson said.