A 911 call played Thursday during Daniel Penny’s high-profile Manhattan manslaughter trial captured a subway passenger telling cops that troubled homeless man, Jordan Neely, was “trying to attack everybody” before the former Marine put him in a chokehold.
Moriela Sanchez, 18, asked the 911 operator to send cops and an ambulance because someone was attacking people on the uptown F train subway car, according to audio of the call revealed during her testimony in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“He’s trying to attack everybody,” Sanchez said of Neely.
“One white man is holding him down,” she could be heard saying during the brief recording.
Sanchez is a friend of Ivette Rosario, who testified on Monday she was “scared” of Neely and shot video of the May 2023 incident with her cellphone, showing Penny holding the homeless man on the subway car as bystanders plead with him to “let him go.”
“Penny put his hands around [Neely’s] neck and then dropped him down so he wouldn’t attack anybody,” Sanchez told jurors on Thursday.
Video that Sanchez took with her cellphone of a lifeless Neely laying on the floor of the subway car was also played for the jury.
Sanchez began filming after exiting the train, shooting through the subway car window as officers started arriving at the scene.
“Oh my gosh,” Sanchez could be heard saying in the video. “He’s not breathing.”
“He’s not breathing … he’s dead,” the teen said.
The footage also showed a cop checking for Neely’s pulse.
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When Sanchez was questioned by Penny’s lawyer about whether Neely’s erratic behavior scared her, she started to softly cry.
Sanchez admitted she was relieved when Penny brought Neely down to the ground. But she also said that it looked like Penny was holding Neely too tightly and that it “kind of” looked like he was trying to hurt the disturbed man.
During Sanchez’ testimony of the chokehold, one woman at the back burst into tears and left the courtroom. It was not immediately known who she was.
The defense tried to confront Sanchez with a contradiction from her grand jury testimony where she said Penny wasn’t squeezing Neely’s neck, but was trying to protect people on the train.
Sanchez’ video is one of several — filmed by bystanders or taken from officers’ body worn cameras — that jurors have been shown over the course of the three days of testimony so far showing either the moments during Penny’s chokehold of Neely or the aftermath of it.
Sanchez was the 11th witness, after several law enforcement witnesses testified Friday and several more train passenger witnesses testified Monday.
Caedryn Schrunk — another witness who was on the train during the fatal chokehold — took the witness stand after Sanchez, testifying she thought she was going to die after hearing Neely’s “satanic” rant.
Schrunk, a senior brand manager at Nike, was on the train to meet a coworker for coffee when Neely, who had “visibly soiled sweatpants,” started saying “‘I don’t care if I die. Kill me, lock me up,’” she recounted.
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“There was a moment where I truly thought I was going to die,” she said, adding that she was relieved when Penny intervened.
“In that moment when Mr. Penny took him down, I did have a sense of relief that the threat was gone,” Schrunk said as she was questioned by Penny’s defense lawyer.
“If [Neely] would have gotten up, who knows what he would have done?” she said.
At one point when Schrunk mentioned seeing a mother shielding her baby, audible murmurs came from a section of the courtroom gallery filled with Neely supporters.
After a short morning break, Justice Maxwell Wiley reminded people attending the trial to “do their best to not visibly react or audibly react” when the jury is in the courtroom.
The third witness Thursday was Johnny Grima, a former homeless man who described walking up to where Penny and Neely were after the subway car stopped.
Grima said he saw Penny release Neely from the chokehold and then interjected to say that Neely should be put on his side so he doesn’t choke.
“He finally did let him go,” Grima said. “Neely fell nimbly to the ground.”
Then when Grima ran a small trickle of water over Neely’s forehead to try to wake him up, Penny told him to stop, Grima said, noting the instruction rubbed him the wrong way.
“I already felt some way about [Penny]. I didn’t like him,” Grima said. “It’s something like you know when you have, like an abuser abusing someone and they’re not trying to let anyone near the abused?”
“The guy who’s choking him out won’t let anyone near? That’s weird. That’s wrong,” Grima said.
Penny’s lawyers have maintained that their client sprang into action to protect riders and that he shouldn’t be held criminally responsible.
Before trial kicked off for the day Thursday, a group of roughly a dozen protesters called for Penny’s conviction.
“Stop calling him a damn Marine! He’s a cold-blooded killer,” one man holding a bullhorn yelled about Penny.
Penny, 26, faces up to 15 years behind bars if convicted.
Juniper Calloway is a dedicated journalist with 3 years of experience in covering hard-hitting stories. Known for her commitment to delivering timely and accurate updates, she currently works with MikeandJon Podcast, where she focuses on reporting critical topics such as crime, local news, and national developments across the United States. Her ability to break down complex issues and keep audiences informed has established her as a trusted voice in journalism.
