Penny 4 Your Thoughts on Violent Vagrants

NY prosecutor Alvin Bragg not only assailed Trump with bogus law fare, now he’s proceeding with criminal trial of Samaritan Daniel Penny who defended subway riders from a crazed vagrant with history of assaults.

William McGurn’s WSJ op ed concedes there are discrepancies in the eyewitness accounts of the 25-yr-old former Marine putting a strangle hold onto a hyperventilating, ranting 30-yr-old Jordan Neely after he screamed at fellow subway riders, among other things, that “somebody is going to die today.” Particularly problematic was the length of Penny’s choke hold, which may have continued after Neely finally went limp. A coroner, in fact, ruled Penny’s actions caused Neely’s death. Yet, as McGurn notes, “Two weeks from the presidential election, the case has become a metaphor for the dysfunction of a justice system no longer capable of distinguishing the good guys from the threats.”

That’s because the devil is in the details, as they usually are when people are suddenly confronted with what appears to be a life-threatening situation. The cops, for good reason, did not arrest Penny until 11 days later and Progressives, ACO and Black Lives Matter campaigned to have “the vigilante” prosecuted for “public murder.” Glossed over was Neely’s appearance on NYC’s “Top 50” list of homeless people “who desperately needed help but refused to get it.” Neely also had 42 arrests for crimes, including punching a 67-yr-old lady in the nose, breaking it, and sucker-punching a man at the same subway stop where he would die while Penny tried to restraint him until police arrived. As McGurn concluded, this record clearly shows Neely was “a threat to himself and others … what we see from this case is that instead of taking erratic people off the streets and giving them the treatment they need, progressive city officials simply throw up their hands. Ordinary people [like Penny] are left to fend for themselves.”

Davd Soul