OPINION:
Americans are fed up with lawlessness. That became clear Monday when a Manhattan jury found Daniel Penny not guilty of the charges filed against him for restraining a troublemaker on a crowded subway train.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg wanted to lock Mr. Penny up over the subdued man’s subsequent death. Throwing the book at Mr. Penny for this unintended outcome was supposed to drive home the message that law-abiding citizens are expected to look the other way when violent crimes are committed in their presence.
Mr. Bragg routinely reduces serious felony charges to misdemeanors, ensuring ruffians are ever present to harass New York City residents. Jordan Neely, a serial offender with 42 arrests on his record, triggered the incident that preceded his demise.
High on synthetic marijuana, the 30-year-old vagrant began screaming in the confined underground space of the subway car. He threatened the women and children aboard, saying: “I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die. I will kill.”
Riders were terrified. “This was the first time in my life that I took a moment, because I was scared that I was going to die in that moment,” a woman explained at trial.
Mr. Penny stepped forward to neutralize the threat. “I knew I had to act, and I acted in a way that would protect the other passengers, protect myself and protect Mr. Neely,” he said in a video released by his lawyers last year.
Using a technique learned from Marine basic training, the now-26-year-old subdued the agitator until the police could arrive, calibrating the strength of his hold based on Neely’s resistance. A defense expert disagreed with the prosecution’s argument that the chokehold caused Neely’s death.
Witnesses confirmed Neely had a pulse and was breathing when police officers took control of the scene. They opted against performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for their own safety, instead administering naloxone, a drug to treat opioid overdoses.
The likes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, and the Rev. Al Sharpton were quick to make Neely a martyr. Career criminals enjoy protected status in the Big Apple, and angry crowds gathered outside the courthouse before the verdict to not so subtly hint at the possibility of a riot in the event of acquittal. The jury showed courage in resisting the intimidation effort.
It is probably no coincidence that the jury deadlocked on the serious manslaughter charge before rejecting the lesser count of criminally negligent homicide. They made the latter decision not long after a masked man stood on Sixth Avenue and gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood. The assailant casually left the scene, confident that bystanders would not intervene.
Mayor Eric Adams rejected the Democratic orthodoxy and defended Mr. Penny, saying, “You have someone on that subway who was responding, doing what we should have done as a city.”
Mr. Bragg feels otherwise. He doesn’t care that Big Apple residents live in fear. He doesn’t care that one of his own assistant district attorneys was recently robbed outside her apartment by a Venezuelan gang member — an illegal alien.
The Marxists who bankrolled Mr. Bragg’s campaign thrive on chaos as a means of achieving social change. November’s election result and now Mr. Penny’s acquittal are welcome signs even New York City liberals are growing tired of the left’s deadly antics.
The social change that’s coming may not be what the left expected.
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