Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged the nation to show Daniel Penny that “America has got his back.” Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley called on the governor of New York to pardon Penny, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy donated $10,000 to her legal defense fund.
Republican presidential hopefuls have lined up to support Penny, a 24-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who was caught on video pinning down a fellow subway passenger in the city of New York. The passenger, Jordan Neely, 30, later died of neck compression, according to the medical examiner.
Penny has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. His lawyers say he acted in self-defense.
He has already become a hero to many Republicans, who have hailed Penny as a good Samaritan who steps up to protect others in a Democratic-led city that has seen rising crime rates. The support has been unwavering, despite the fact that Neely, who is black, never got physical with anyone on the train before being choked for several minutes by Penny, who is white.
The rush to support Penny is reminiscent of how then-President Donald Trump and other top Republicans fiercely supported Kyle Rittenhouse during the 2020 presidential election. Rittenhouse, a white teenager who killed two men and wounded a third during a tumultuous night of protests in Wisconsin over the death of a black man, he was acquitted.
Most recently, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott promised to pardon Daniel Perry, a white Army sergeant who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fatally shooting a gunman during a Black Lives Matter protest on 2020 in the state capital, Austin.
Top Republicans have tried to make rising crime rates a political liability for Democrats. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee traveled to New York City last month, before Neely was killed, for a hearing examining “victims of violent crime in Manhattan.”
Democrats and racial justice advocates counter that the GOP’s messaging about restoring “law and order” plays on deep-seated racism.
“They have a playbook for winning elections that is based on really tapping into the worst parts of human nature and really driving it home with division and fear,” said Jumaane Williams, a Democrat who is the public advocate for the New York City. “And if there’s race and class, it’s like Christmas for them.”
Neely, known to some travelers as a Michael Jackson impersonator, had a history of mental illness and had been arrested frequently in the past. Onlookers said he had been shouting at passengers, demanding money and acting aggressively, but did not touch anyone on board the train.
Christopher Borick, director of Muhlenberg College’s Institute for Public Opinion, said GOP presidential candidates see Penny’s cause as a way to excite their party’s base.
“There’s very little downside within the Republican electorate, given that it overlaps so well with the issues that are incredibly prominent among Republican voters in terms of law and order and they fit this narrative about the degeneration of urban life ” Borick said. “That’s the message, the message from Trump and his Republican bloc, that ‘lunatics’ are a threat and we must do what we can to protect ‘Americans’ in any way we can.”
But the GOP’s defense of white people after black people are often killed is very different from incidents where white people are killed. A key example is Ashli Babbitt, the white former Air Force veteran who was shot and killed by a black police officer while trying to climb through a broken window in the US Capitol during the 6 January 2021.
Trump called Babbitt an “innocent, wonderful, incredible woman” and called the black officer who shot her a “thug.” Other Republicans have mourned him as a martyr.
Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of Black PAC, said the issue goes beyond the presidential race, noting that some Republican-controlled legislatures passed measures after the 2020 wave of protests against institutional racism and brutality police, seeking to punish the protesters more severely.
Shropshire, whose group works to increase African-American political engagement and voter participation, said the issue reinforces the GOP’s longstanding commitment to “protecting whiteness, which is what it’s fundamentally about.”
As for Democrats, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted before charges were filed that Neely’s “murderer” was being “protected” while “many in power demonize the poor.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams called Neely’s death “a tragedy that should never have happened,” but warned against making irresponsible statements before all the facts are known.
Rafael Mangual, head of police and public safety research at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative New York think tank, said the case presents a deep legal ambiguity that many people on both sides are overlooking.
“I’ve gotten really emotional to the point where politicians on the left have denounced Daniel Penny as a murderer and politicians on the right have said, ‘This is what we have to do,'” Mangual said. “I don’t want live in a world in which the maintenance of public order falls to everyday freaks”.
There was no doubt from Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called Penny a “hero,” or Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who dubbed Penny a “Subway Superman” and once offer an internship at Rittenhouse.
Trump, now running for president for the third time, said this week that he had not seen the video, but told The Messenger that he thought Penny “was in great danger and the other people in the car were in great danger.” .
Helping to fuel Republican anger is the fact that Penny’s case is being handled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is leading the prosecution of Trump on charges that he paid hush money to cover up an affair during his presidential campaign of 2016.
“We must defeat the Soros-funded DAs, stop the left’s pro-criminal agenda, and get law-abiding citizens back on the streets,” tweeted DeSantis, who is preparing to announce his 2024 presidential bid. repeating false claims that the billionaire investor and philanthropist. George Soros orchestrated Trump’s impeachment.
“We stand with good Samaritans like Daniel Penny,” DeSantis wrote, including a link to a fundraising page for Penny. “Let’s show this Marine … America has his back.”
Former Ambassador Haley told Fox News Channel that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, should pardon Penny. Ramaswamy donated to Penny’s defense fund through GiveSendGo, a site that also raised funds to support rioters who attacked the Capitol the day Babbitt was killed. It has raised around $2 million in donations for Penny.
During Neely’s funeral on Friday, the Rev. Al Sharpton offered an indirect response to Penny’s supporters, saying “a good Samaritan helps those in trouble, not suffocates them.”
Williams, an ombudsman who can investigate citizen complaints about agencies and services, said prominent Republicans have been politically capitalizing on racially charged violence since 1988 with political ads featuring Willie Horton, a black killer who raped a white woman while on weekend leave from prison. He also noted that many of the people now contributing to Penny’s defense fund also likely supported cutting social programs that could have benefited people like Neely.
“These people aren’t saying, ‘Let’s let it play out, let’s see what happens,'” Williams said. “They’re immediately turning somebody into a hero who killed somebody on a train who was screaming and yelling because they’re hungry.”
