Daniel Penny interrogation video reveals him telling detectives Im not trying to kill the guy hours after Jordan Neelys chokehold death
Daniel Penny appeared unaware that his chokehold on Jordan Neely had killed the homeless man — and tried to downplay the maneuver hours later, insisting he wasn’t “trying to kill the guy,” it was revealed in court Thursday.“I wasn’t trying to injure him.I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anybody else,” the Marine veteran, 26, told two detectives during a videotaped interrogation shown to jurors.“That’s what we are taught in the Marine Corps,” Penny added, referring to protecting others, in the footage played during the third week of his lightning-rod manslaughter trial in Manhattan Supreme Court.Detective Brian McCarthy testified that he did not tell Penny that Neely had died during the interrogation — though video of the subway car shows that Penny witnessed police officers trying to revive a lifeless Neely minutes after the chokehold ended.Investigators with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office were also, unbeknownst to Penny, watching him through a one-sided mirror at Chinatown’s 5th Precinct, McCarthy said.It was the first time jurors got to hear the voice of the man whose fate they’ll weigh when they consider whether Penny is criminally responsible for Neely’s death.“I’m not trying to kill the guy,” Penny told detectives in the video, insisting he let go of Neely, 30, “as soon” as two other men arrived to help restrain the homeless man — a statement that one of those men testified earlier this week is false.“‘I am going to grab his hands, so you can let go,’” witness Eric Gonzalez said he told Penny after approaching him.
He added he hoped Penny would remove his arm from Neely’s neck, but that Penny did not.Penny’s lawyers tried to attack Gonzalez’s credibility by pointing out that he lied to investigators, claiming at first that Neely had hit him — a fib he explained by saying he’d been scared he’d get “pinned” on a murder charge.In the interrogation video shown to jurors Thursday,...