Woman who witnessed subway death calls Marine a 'hero' and slams AOC for politicizing the incident: 'Race is being used to divide us'

A woman who witnessed the chokehold death of a homeless man on the New York City subway excoriated politicians for racializing the incident, and she called the former Marine a "hero" for defending the other bystanders.

The woman told Fox News Digital that she is retired, identifies as a person of color, and has lived in New York City for over 50 years.

She said she was reading a book when 30-year-old Jordan Neely threatened the passengers on the subway on May 2.

"I’m sitting on a train reading my book, and, all of a sudden, I hear someone spewing this rhetoric. He said, ‘I don’t care if I have to kill an F, I will. I’ll go to jail, I’ll take a bullet,’" she said.

She said that people were terrified and crowded around the exits to get away from Neely.

"I’m looking at where we are in the tube, in the sardine can, and I’m like, ‘OK, we’re in between stations. There’s nowhere we can go,’" she explained. "The people on that train, we were scared. We were scared for our lives."

She said that Daniel Penny took action after Neely used the words "bullet" and "kill" during his tirade.

"Why in the world would you take a bullet? Why? You don’t take a bullet because you’ve snatched something from somebody’s hand. You take a bullet for violence," she said.

She said that she stayed in order to make a statement to the police and that she and at least three other passengers thanked Penny for his actions.

"Mr. Penny cared for people. That’s what he did. That is his crime," she added.

She went on to call Penny a hero.

"It was self-defense, and I believe in my heart that he saved a lot of people that day that could have gotten hurt," she added.

The woman singled out socialist Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as an example of politicians who were unfairly maligning Penny.

"There was AOC saying that this gentleman was lynched. Why would she do that? She's supposed to be for all people," she said.

"This isn't about race. This is about people of all colors who were very, very afraid and a man who stepped in to help them," she added. "Race is being used to divide us."

Penny was freed from jail on a $100,000 bond and is due in court in July.

The woman concluded with a warning about standards dropping in the U.S.

"It’s not looking that good for us," she said. "You know, we were supposed to be an example to other nations but are turning into a Third World country."

Here's more about the subway chokehold:

Daniel Penny surrenders on manslaughter charge in NYC subway chokehold deathwww.youtube.com

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