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Mayor Eric Adams defended Daniel Penny as a Manhattan jury on Tuesday started deliberating whether to convict him of choking a troubled homeless man to death on the subway — insisting the Marine veteran was doing “what we should have done as a city.”
Hizzoner said he hoped jurors would “make the right decision” in the lightning-rod case as he blasted the “failure” of the Big Apple’s mental health system for not doing more to help Jordan Neely in the lead up to the fatal 2023 subway encounter.
“The young man, in this case, was going within our system, throughout the revolving door of our system. Now, we’re on the subway where we’re hearing someone talking about hurting people, killing people,” Adams said Saturday on 710 WOR’s “The Rob Astorino Show.”
“You have someone on that subway who was responding, doing what we should have done as a city in a state of having a mental health facility,” he added.
“Those passengers were afraid. I’ve been on the subway system. I know what it is as a police officer to wrestle or fight with someone. It is imperative that we look at the totality of this problem,” Adams said.
Adams went on to say that he hoped jurors would “hear all the facts” as they consider whether the 26-year-old former Marine was justified in restraining 30-year-old Neely — who had a history of mental illness and drug abuse — following his outburst on the crowded F train train in May last year.
“Based on all the facts that’s laid out, a jury of his peers will make the right decision. I don’t want to prejudge that,” Adams said of whether Penny should be found guilty of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
“That could have easily been a case where you saw three innocent people murdered on our street two weeks ago,” he added, referring to a recent deadly stabbing spree in Manhattan on Nov 18.
“We have to recognize we have a mental health crisis, and we’re not doing enough to solve it.”