NEW YORK (AP) — A Marine veteran who held an agitated subway rider in a chokehold was acquitted Monday in a death that became a prism for differing views on public safety, bravery and vigilantism.

A Manhattan jury acquitted Daniel Penny of involuntary manslaughter in the 2023 death of Jordan Neely. A more serious charge of involuntary manslaughter was dismissed last week because the jury deadlocked on the matter.

Penny, who had shown little expression during the trial, smiled briefly as the verdict was read. The courtroom erupted in both applause and anger, and Neely’s father and two supporters were escorted out after an audible reaction. Another person also left, crying.

“It really, really hurts,” Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, said outside the courthouse. “I had enough of it. The system is rigged.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the Democrat whose office filed the case, said prosecutors had “pursued the facts and evidence from beginning to end” and respected the ruling.

There was no immediate comment from lawyers about Penny, who rushed to a waiting car after the verdict. The anonymous jury, which began deliberations on Tuesday, was escorted from court to a van.

Penny’s lawyers had said he was protecting himself and other subway passengers from an erratic, mentally ill man who made disturbing comments and gestures.

The case exacerbated many American fault lines, including race, politics, crime, urban life, mental illness and homelessness. Neely was black. Penny is white.

There have sometimes been dueling demonstrations outside the courthouse, including on Monday, when chants could be heard through the courtroom window before the verdict was announced. Senior Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero, while prominent Democrats attended Neely’s funeral.

Penny, 26, served in the Marines for four years and then studied architecture.

Neely, 30, was a former Subway performer with a tragic life story: When he was a teenager, his mother was killed and stuffed in a suitcase.

As a younger man, Neely paid homage to Michael Jackson on the city’s streets and subways – including moonwalks. But Neely also struggled with mental illness after losing his mother, whose boyfriend was convicted of murdering her.

He was subsequently diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia, was repeatedly hospitalized, and consumed the synthetic cannabinoid K2 and found it negatively affecting his thinking and behavior, according to medical records viewed at trial. The drug was in his body when he died.

Neely told a doctor in 2017 that his homelessness, living in poverty and having to “dig through trash for food” left him feeling so hopeless that he sometimes thought about killing himself, hospital records show.

About six years later, on May 1, 2023, he boarded a subway train under Manhattan, threw his jacket on the ground and declared that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care whether he died or went to prison, witnesses said. Some told emergency responders that he tried to attack people or that he suggested he would harm drivers, and several said they were afraid.

Neely was unarmed, had nothing but a muffin in his pocket and did not touch any passengers. One said he made lunge movements that alarmed her enough to protect her five-year-old from him.

Penny came up behind Neely, grabbed him by the neck, threw him to the ground and “knocked him out,” as the veteran police officer at the scene said.

Passenger video showed Neely tapping a bystander’s leg and pointing once during the approximately six-minute wait. Later he was briefly given one arm free. But he stood there for almost a minute before Penny let him go.

“He’s dying,” an unseen bystander said in a video. “Let him go!”

A witness who stepped in to restrain Neely’s arms testified that he directed Penny to free the man, although Penny’s lawyers noted that the witness’s story changed significantly over time.

Penny told investigators shortly after the encounter that Neely had threatened to kill people and that the chokehold was an attempt to “de-escalate” the situation until police could arrive. The veteran said he lasted so long because Neely squirmed regularly.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I’m just trying to stop him from hurting someone else. He threatens people. That’s what we learn in the Marine Corps,” Penny told detectives.

However, one of Penny’s Marine Corps instructors testified that the veteran misused a chokehold technique he was taught.

Prosecutors said Penny responded far too forcefully to someone he perceived as a threat, rather than a person. Prosecutors also argued that the need to protect passengers quickly faded when the train doors opened at the next station, seconds after Penny took action.

Although Penny himself told police he used “a stranglehold” or “strangle hold,” one of his attorneys, Steven Raiser, described it as a Marine-learned chokehold that was “modified into a simple civilian restraint.” Defense attorneys claimed Penny didn’t apply consistent enough pressure to kill Neely.

A pathologist hired by the defense contradicted a city medical examiner’s finding, saying Neely died not from the chokehold but from the combined effects of K2, schizophrenia, his fighting and restraint, and a blood disorder that can lead to fatal complications with exertion .

Penny did not testify, but several of his relatives, friends and fellow Marines did – and described him as an upstanding, patriotic and sensitive man.

The involuntary manslaughter charge would have required proof that Penny recklessly caused Neely’s death. Involuntary manslaughter is a serious “criminal conduct” that involves not being aware of such a risk. Both charges were felonies and carried a prison sentence.

While the criminal case was unfolding, Neely’s father filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Penny.

___

Associated Press journalists Joseph B. Frederick and Ted Shaffrey contributed.