Former Marine Daniel Penny, 24, was released Friday on $100,000 bail. He is indicted on one count of murder after strangling Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless man with mental health problems who was behaving erratically on a New York subway car.
Defense lawyers opened an online petition and donations are pouring in. They have already raised more than two million. Because for the extreme right – judge, jury and executioner – Penny is a hero, a good Samaritan who saved the citizens of a decaying metropolis, described as hell, which tourists seem to like very much.
Do not forget a crucial fact in a country where supremacism is highly reinforced, since the dead man is black and the vigilante is white.
Nor has it been neglected that the head of the Manhattan Prosecutor's Office, who has made the accusation, is called Alvin Bragg, the same one who formulated the accusation against former President Trump for his alleged dealings in paying for the silence of a porn actress. Bragg is seen as the embodiment of evil.
This case, moreover, has unified opposing sides within the most ultramontane sector of Republicans. Marjorie Taylor Greene, conspiratorial congresswoman and Trumpist to the core, called Penny a “hero” on Twitter. And in turn Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and enemy of Trump for his possible candidacy for the White House in 2024, launched tweets encouraging people to donate to the cause of the "good Samaritan" and thus "recover the streets for citizens respectful of the law".
Neeley? One less hindrance.
