Daniel Penny, fresh from volunteering at an AIDS orphanage in sub-Saharan Africa, tugged the stethoscope he still wears in case he must medically tend to child statewide. “White or Black! I don’t see color!” he insists. He leans forward. His eyes, sparkling like a gurgling brook in the woods, gleam with passion as he tells the Post about his plan to adopt a Sudanese child soldier. “Even though they’re Black, because I don’t see color!”
“I travelled the world as a heroic Marine—it’s how I discovered my love for all the colors in the beautiful tapestry of humanity.” Now, Penny says, he just wants to give back. Penny’s back is as rugged as the mountainous Nicuraguan terrain where he built homes for war orphans of color.
Penny told the Post that he’s long admired Black culture and its multifaceted contributions to America. “Growing up, Oprah was always on!” he laughs, recalling his idealic childhood in Long Island that forged the stoic, resilient Marine who should consider running for President one day.
At press time Penny slipped on a clean shirt—cerulean or azure, the color of his eyes—over his glistening, muscular arms, to go serve soup at a homeless shelter run by Black church.
*If this satire is too broad, I might mention that the actual New York Post snow job is so absurd it’s hard to parody it.
I mean come on. The guy deserves a fair trial. He’s not going to get one because the fucking Post keeps posting propaganda clearly planted by his lawyers. This profile is what Presidential candidates do when they try to appear “human” to trick voters into picking them.
Here’s the actual Post story:
Ex-Marine Daniel Penny insisted to The Post Saturday that the chokehold killing of Jordan Neely had nothing to do with race — and everything to do with a broken system “that so desperately failed us.”
In his first public comments since the caught-on-video May 1 tragedy on an F train, Penny was both soft-spoken and stoic about being at the center of a political and racial firestorm, as he faces criminal charges that could send him to prison for up to 15 years.
“This had nothing to do with race,” said Penny, 24, sitting under a gazebo at Argyle Park in Babylon, not far from the Long Island beaches where he grew up surfing.
Dressed in black slacks, a blue zip-up jacket and beat-up Vans sneakers, Penny didn’t flinch when asked about Neely, a black, 30-year-old mentally ill homeless man.
“I judge a person based on their character. I’m not a white supremacist.
“I mean, it’s, it’s a little bit comical. Everybody who’s ever met me can tell you, I love all people, I love all cultures. You can tell by my past and all my travels and adventures around the world. I was actually planning a road trip through Africa before this happened.”
He is not a vigilante, Penny said. “I’m a normal guy.”
The confrontation on the train began after Neely allegedly began yelling at other straphangers and throwing trash. Penny said he could not go into detail about the events that then transpired because of his pending case, but he indicated it wasn’t like “anything I’d experienced before.”
“This was different, this time was much different,” Penny said.
He paused and said again, “This time was very different.”
Penny’s attorney Thomas Kenniff of the Manhattan law firm Raiser & Kenniff said that fellow F train passengers will back up his client’s account.
“I can tell you that the threats, the menacing, the terror that Jordan Neely introduced to that train has already been well documented. I don’t think it’s going to even be controverted. There are numerous witnesses from all different walks of life who have absolutely no motive to do anything other than to recount what actually happened. They are uniform in their recollection of events.”
Penny said he was coming back to Manhattan from school and was en route to his gym on West 23rd Street when the chaotic encounter erupted. He did not want to name the school where he is studying architecture. He is now taking classes
remotely.
“I was going to my gym,” Penny said. “There’s a pool there. I like to swim. I was living in the East Village. I take the subway multiple times a day. I think the New York transit system is the best in the world and I’ve been all over the world.”
Penny seized Neely around the neck and dropped to the floor as a second and third man tried to restrain him further, according to witnesses and video of the fatal encounter.
The city medical examiner has ruled Neely’s death a homicide, noting he died due to “compression of neck (chokehold).”
Penny was charged with second-degree manslaughter and is free on $100,000 bail. It is not clear if authorities will look to charge the other two men. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has six months to secure a grand jury indictment against Penny, according to Penny’s attorney, Steven M. Raiser.
Neely’s family has said Penny should be tried for murder.
But Penny’s attorneys have said he didn’t intend to kill Neely when he choked him — he was merely trying to defend himself and fellow straphangers from a threatening homeless man, who had a long history of mental illness and numerous prior arrests.
When asked what he would say to the family of Jordan Neely, whose funeral was Friday, Penny looked somber, carefully choosing his words.
“I’m deeply saddened by the loss of life,” he said ” It’s tragic what happened to him. Hopefully, we can change the system that’s so desperately failed us.”
But when asked if he would take action again if he were in a similar situation, Penny nodded.
“You know, I live an authentic and genuine life,” Penny said. “And I would — if there was a threat and danger in the present …”
Does he feel he did anything to be ashamed of?
“I don’t, I mean, I always do what I think is right.”
The Post read Penny the statement made by the Rev. Al Sharpton at Neely’s funeral in Harlem Friday: “We can’t live in a city where you can choke me to death with no provocation, no weapon, no threat and you go home and sleep in your bed while my family has to put me into a cemetery.”
Penny nodded but said he was “not sure” who Sharpton is. “I don’t really know celebrities that well.”
He added that he does not watch the news. While he is aware of some of the negativity toward him — and said he was somewhat surprised by the media onslaught — he remained philosophical.
“If you’re faced with all these challenges, you have to remain calm. What’s the point of worrying about something, worrying is not going to make your problems disappear. I attribute this to my father and grandfather. They are very very stoic.”
Penny described a relatively happy childhood growing up in the West Islip area. He was one of four children. His parents split up when he was young.
He said his two role models are his grandfathers, one of whom immigrated from Italy. The other grandfather is a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from Italy. He said he moved around a lot in the West Islip area because of his parents’ split but spent much of his formative years in a house right near the sea that his great-grandfather bought in the 1960s.
“My grandmother was raised there,” Penny said. “And then my father and his brothers were raised there. And then me and my sisters were able to grow up there. I’m very thankful. It is a beautiful house right [near] the water. We wouldn’t have been able to live that lifestyle on the water if it wasn’t for my family.”
Penny said his parents’ divorce was difficult but it had an upside.
“It brought me and my sisters closer. You know, we’re really close. I love my sisters. I have three of them. I’d do anything for them.”
Penny attended Suffolk Community College after graduating from West Islip High School where he was a lacrosse star – before enlisting in the Marines.
“Growing up in the wake of 9/11 and the terrorist attacks in a community full of firemen, first responders, police officers, it was like, I needed to serve my community in some way.”
Penny was deployed twice with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Blah blah blah you get the picture.
My two cents. Regardless of what he says Daniel Perry should not be giving interviews before a possible trial. If he does grant an interview I don’t think there’s much else he can say. I don’t expect him to unfortunately get a fair trial in NYC.
The issue here is not whether or not Daniel Perry’s a racist or not. His trial is about whether his killing of Neely is manslaughter or justifiable self defense. I’m appalled by what he did, but I’ll leave that to the jury. The racism spills out from the right-wing politicians justifying Perry’s actions and making him a hero. They don’t have to say “All black men are scary,” because that’s the subtext that their target audience already knows. They want to make Perry a hero, because keeping us safe from “those people” is their justification for becoming our rulers.