Eric Adams weighs in on Daniel Penny trial: 'Those passengers were afraid'

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) defended Daniel Penny as his trial ended arguments and the jury began deliberations. Penny could face up to 15 years in prison if the jury finds him guilty of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the death of Jordan Neely.

The trial highlighted how Penny took action to restrain Neely, who made death threats on a subway car while it was going to another station. Neely also said he did not care if he went to jail.

Chundru said Neely died from 'the combined effects of sickle-cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana.'

“We’re now on the subway, where we’re hearing someone talking about hurting people, killing people,” Adams said to radio host Rob Astorino, according to the Daily Wire. “You have someone [Penny] on that subway who was responding, doing what we should have done as a city.”

"Those passengers were afraid," he added.

Multiple witnesses, even some called by the prosecution, said they were terrified of Neely and thought this particular man was more dangerous than other deranged people on the city's subway system.

“Then you look at the complete failure of our mental health system, a complete failure from the days of closing psychiatric wards and having those who needed help just turned over into the street without giving any safety net to accept them," Adams said about the city's ongoing problems with providing mental health care.

The Democrat mayor took issue with how the media has portrayed Neely, heavily emphasizing his Michael Jackson impersonation while downplaying his actions that led to Penny restraining him.

“It seemed like it was a young, innocent child who was brutally murdered, and it gave that impression when you look at the photo that was being used," Adams said.

While the medical examiner of Manhattan testified that Penny's hold on Neely was the sole cause of death, going so far as to say that it would have been the cause of death even if Neely had enough drugs in his system "to put down an elephant," a forensic pathologist called by Penny's defense team said that was not the case.

Dr. Satish Chundru testified he ruled out the air choke and the blood choke as the only cause of death because there were other contributing factors. Chundru said the bruising on Neely's neck and the “almost negligible” tiny spots of bleeding found on his eyelids were not consistent with a fatal chokehold.

Chundru said Neely died from “the combined effects of sickle-cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana," noting that schizophrenia results in an “increased risk of sudden cardiac death.”

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