“I just put him out” — that’s what Marine veteran Daniel Penny told cops on a Manhattan subway platform moments after he put homeless man Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold , video played in court Thursday reveals.
Penny’s statement, made to officers on the Broadway-Lafayette platform last May, is among several pieces of evidence that his lawyers are fighting to keep out of his manslaughter trial slated for later this month.
Wearing a gray suit and purple tie, Penny calmly watched on as prosecutors played video from an arriving cop’s bodycam, plus footage of his interrogation later that night — where he insisted that he did not mean to hurt Neely and was merely protecting his fellow straphangers during the train car altercation.
“I wasn’t trying to injure him,” Penny told detectives at Chinatown’s 5th Precinct, the interrogation video shows. “I was just trying to keep him from hurting anyone else. He was threatening people.”