Vice President-elect JD Vance on Friday said that he had invited Daniel Penny, a former Marine who was acquitted this week on a charge of criminally negligent homicide after putting a man in a chokehold in a New York subway car, to attend the Army-Navy football game on Saturday with him.
The two will join President-elect Donald J. Trump in a suite at the game, which is set to be played this year just outside of Washington.
The invitation highlighted how Mr. Penny’s case has become a cause for Republicans, who have criticized the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, for prosecuting the case.
“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Mr. Vance said in a post on X. “I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage.”
After the jury delivered its unanimous verdict this week, Mr. Vance said that it had been a “scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”
The episode that led to Mr. Penny’s trial occurred in May 2023, when he boarded an uptown train and encountered Jordan Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator, who yelled about his hunger, wanting to return to jail, and not caring if he lived or died, behavior that some witnesses had described as frightening. Mr. Penny approached Mr. Neely and put him in a chokehold, taking him to the floor. A four-minute video of the encounter quickly circulated online.
The episode became a flashpoint in New York for concerns over homelessness and mental illness, with many city residents criticizing what they saw as a breakdown in the city’s social services that had left Mr. Neely in need of help. Some saw the incident as an indication of danger on the city’s subways and considered Mr. Penny to be protecting fellow passengers. Mr. Penny told detectives that he believed Mr. Neely had posed a threat to others on the train.
The acquittal this week also drew out divergent responses.
As Mr. Vance criticized the prosecution, leaders of the City Council’s Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus and Progressive Caucus said in a statement that the decision “highlights a deep-seated societal discomfort with unhoused individuals in need of support, and effectively green-lights ‘vigilante justice’ against the most vulnerable New Yorkers.”
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