Demo­c­rat NYC May­or Eric Adams Strong­ly Defends Daniel Pen­ny, Blasts Media

New York City Demo­c­ra­t­ic May­or Eric Adams strong­ly defend­ed 26-year-old for­mer U.S. Marine Daniel Pen­ny, who’s been charged in the death of Jor­dan Neely.

Pen­ny restrained Neely, a trou­bled man with a lengthy crim­i­nal record and a his­to­ry of men­tal health issues, after Neely alleged­ly threat­ened pas­sen­gers on a sub­way last year.

“We’re now on the sub­way where we’re hear­ing some­one talk­ing about hurt­ing peo­ple, killing peo­ple,” Adams said, refer­ring to Neely’s alleged threat­en­ing behav­ior. “You have some­one [Pen­ny] on that sub­way who was respond­ing, doing what we should have done as a city.”

“Those pas­sen­gers were afraid,” Adams empha­sized, speak­ing to for­mer New York guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date and radio host Rob Astori­no. 

The may­or also ref­er­enced the men­tal health cri­sis in NYC. “Then you look at the com­plete fail­ure of our men­tal health sys­tem, a com­plete fail­ure from the days of clos­ing psy­chi­atric wards and hav­ing those who need­ed help just turned over into the street with­out giv­ing any safe­ty net to accept them.” 

In 2022, Adams faced crit­i­cism from the far-Left when he announced a plan to hos­pi­tal­ize some severe­ly men­tal­ly ill peo­ple invol­un­tar­i­ly, not­ing the city’s “moral oblig­a­tion to act.”

Adams also accused the media of down­play­ing Neely’s alleged threat­en­ing behav­ior by pro­mot­ing pho­tos of a youth­ful Neely work­ing as a Michael Jack­son imper­son­ator.

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“Look at the pho­to that they used to show the vic­tim,” Adams said, “It seemed like it was a young inno­cent child who was bru­tal­ly mur­dered, and it gave that impres­sion when you look at the pho­to that was being used. It want­ed to set up in the minds of peo­ple that we were deal­ing with a young inno­cent child that was, you know, just a Michael Jack­son [imper­son­ator].”

Neely, how­ev­er, has a crim­i­nal record and a his­to­ry of men­tal health issues. Accord­ing to sev­er­al wit­ness­es, he threat­ened the sub­way train and made it clear he was will­ing to die or go to prison for life, if nec­es­sary.

It was also found that Neely had K2 and oth­er drugs in his sys­tem when he died. K2 is a syn­thet­ic drug, some­times called “spice,” which has been linked to psy­chosis.

Pen­ny has been charged with sec­ond-degree manslaugh­ter and crim­i­nal­ly neg­li­gent homi­cide in Neely’s death and could face up to 15 years behind bars. Jury delib­er­a­tions in the case are expect­ed to start Tues­day.

Relat­ed: Clos­ing Argu­ments In Daniel Pen­ny Tri­al: Pros­e­cu­tion Claims Racial Bias, Defense Defends Hero­ism