A woman who was on the New York City subway when a homeless man died after being choked to death by a former Marine has criticized politicians for making racial comments in response to the tragedy and dubbed the former Marine a “hero” for defending the other spectators.
The woman has been a resident of New York City for more than half a century, according to her statement to Fox News Digital. She also identifies as a person of color.
She claimed that she was preoccupied with reading a book when Jordan Neely, 30, began threatening the other riders on the subway on May 2.
“I’m sitting on a train reading my book, and, all of a sudden, I hear someone spewing this rhetoric. He said, ‘I don’t care if I have to kill an F, I will. I’ll go to jail, I’ll take a bullet,’” she said.
She reported that people were afraid and swarmed around the exits in an attempt to escape Neely.
“I’m looking at where we are in the tube, in the sardine can, and I’m like, ‘OK, we’re in between stations. There’s nowhere we can go,’” she explained. “The people on that train, we were scared. We were scared for our lives.”
According to her, Daniel Penny intervened when Neely used the terms “bullet” and “kill” while he was on his rant.
“Why in the world would you take a bullet? Why? You don’t take a bullet because you’ve snatched something from somebody’s hand. You take a bullet for violence,” she said.
She stated that she stayed in order to give a statement to the police, and that she and at least three other passengers thanked Penny for his actions. She said that she stayed in order to make a statement to the police.
“Mr. Penny cared for people. That’s what he did. That is his crime,” she added.
She continued by saying that Penny was a hero.
“It was self-defense, and I believe in my heart that he saved a lot of people that day that could have gotten hurt,” she added.
The woman singled out New York’s Representative for the Democratic Socialist Party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as an example of a politician who was unfairly smearing Penny’s reputation.
“There was AOC saying that this gentleman was lynched. Why would she do that? She’s supposed to be for all people,” she said.
“This isn’t about race. This is about people of all colors who were very, very afraid and a man who stepped in to help them,” she added. “Race is being used to divide us.”
Penny was released from jail after posting a bond of $100,000 and is scheduled to appear in court in July.
The last thing the woman said was a caution about how standards are slipping in the United States.
“It’s not looking that good for us,” she said. “You know, we were supposed to be an example to other nations but are turning into a Third World country.”
