As he lay on a subway floor with a stranger’s arm around his neck, Jordan Neely reached and tapped a bystander on the leg, video showed Monday at the manslaughter trial surrounding Neely’s death.
The bystander bent down to Neely, who gestured urgently with his right hand for about 15 seconds. Then a third person who was already holding Neely’s left arm grasped his right arm and folded it across his chest.
All the while, Marine veteran Daniel Penny continued gripping Neely by the neck from behind for over three minutes as Neely tried to roll free, briefly pried his left arm loose and swung his leg until his movement slowed, then stopped.
As the video was replayed on big courtroom screens, Neely’s father held his head in his hands and then quietly stepped out of the room.
The video — a longer version of a clip that has been seen widely on social media — and another onlooker’s footage gave the anonymous jury its first direct view of the chokehold at the heart of Penny’s manslaughter trial. A third witness told jurors Monday that Penny seemed to be in a “trance” as he restrained Neely that day in 2023.
The videos also gave the public a bigger window into an encounter that has sparked protests and political debate over the line between self-defense and vigilantism and how race, homelessness, mental illness and drug use factor in. Neely was Black; Penny is white.