"A witness stated that
at some point during the chokehold, Penny relaxed his grip on Neely, and Neely coughed up a wad of blood and mucus.
[31] [...] At 2:29 p.m., a passerby on the train warned that
Neely had defecated on himself, a sign that he may be dying, saying, "You don't want to catch a murder charge. You got a hell of a chokehold, man."
[2][14] One of the other men restraining Neely responded, claiming that what appeared to be new excrement was just old excrement.
[32] One of the men also responded to the warning by saying that Penny had stopped "squeezing" Neely's neck.
[14] About 50 seconds after Neely became motionless, Penny and one man who was still restraining Neely's arms released their hold on him.
[29][33]"
en.wikipedia.org
Penny carried on with the chokehold even after Neely coughed up blood and mucus and defecated himself. I struggle to see him as a hero as some do in this thread. He attacked a vulnerable person (from behind, without warning, without an attempt to deescalate) in what may prove to be in court an unwarranted attack and killed him.
Neely didn't kill himself.
Neely didn't choke himself to death.
Reading some of the posts in this thread, you'd think Neely did it all himself, and deserved it too, even being questioned why he resisted the chokehold. I guess most of us would just desist and let someone choke us, deprive us of oxygen and not do a thing?
Some posters earlier said that Neely was out of control and shouldn't have been allowed on the subway. Penny seems pretty out of control himself in my opinion. What's worse is that he'd do it again:
“I’m deeply saddened by the loss of life,” Penny said ” It’s tragic what happened to him. Hopefully, we can change the system that’s so desperately failed us.…
nypost.com
What is troubling about his interview is that he is not humbled. He brushes off the death. He is not upset about killing Jordan. Jordan had it coming and Penny was there to save the day.