• Penny is the man who choked Neely on the F train, a former senior law enforcement official confirmed.
  • The surfing enthusiast and ex-Marine squad leader was first identified on Twitter as Neely's assailant.
  • Penny, his lawyer, and family members did not respond to messages from Insider.

The former Marine who is seen choking a homeless Michael Jackson impersonator in a subway killing that shocked New York City and the nation this week is Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old surfing enthusiast from West Islip, Long Island, Insider has confirmed.

Penny can be seen on video with his arm around the head and neck of Jordan Neely, who had been reportedly behaving erratically on the F train on Monday around 2:15 pm.

Penny's name circulated on Twitter on Thursday, and his last name was briefly included in a caption on the website of The Daily Mail identifying him as the assailant and published an article Friday morning naming Penny as well.

A former senior law enforcement official confirmed to Insider that Daniel Penny was the man who is seen on video placing Neely in a chokehold before his death.

Penny, his family members, and his lawyers didn't respond to phone calls or messages sent Thursday night and Friday morning. He has not been charged with a crime.

 

The fight that led to Neely's death was partly captured on video by independent journalist Juan Alberto Vázquez. The video shows Penny and two other men holding Neely on the floor of the subway car until Neely stopped moving. New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Neely's death a homicide by compression to the neck on Wednesday, May 3. 

Police questioned but did not arrest Penny, and declined to release his name. Several media accounts described him only as a Marine or former Marine. Stories published by New York City's two tabloids were far less flattering to Neely, whose lengthy arrest record they highlighted.

For years, Neely was a familiar face to Manhattan commuters who would see him impersonating Michael Jackson in subway stations. He reportedly experienced severe mental health challenges following the murder of his mother in 2007. Neely's aunt told the New York Post that he sought help at Bellevue Hospital but was unable to get the treatment he needed. (The hospital's press office did not immediately respond to an email asking for comment.)

On Monday, May 1, he began behaving erratically on an F train in Manhattan, according to media reports. Penny put Neely into a chokehold for several minutes. Neely appeared to stop moving as Penny applied a chokehold on the floor of the subway train as it idled at Broadway-Lafayette station. He was taken to a hospital, where he died.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Penny joined the Marines in 2017 after graduating from West Islip High School, where photos and videos of him show playing on his high school lacrosse team. The Marine Corps confirmed to Insider that he joined the Marines as an infantryman and rose to the rank of sergeant. Penny's last assignment was at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, according to the Marine Corps. That description matches Penny's LinkedIn profile.

 

On Harri, a recruitment tool for the restaurant industry, Penny described himself as an "adventurous, charismatic, authentic" New Yorker interested in bartending jobs. His profile photo shows him carrying a surfboard. On the day of the altercation on the subway, Penny was wearing a sweatshirt from a Long Island surf shop and a hat with the logo of an Australian surf brand.

"While serving as squad leader on two deployment [sic], I began to realize what I was passionate about. I loved helping, communicating, and connecting to different people from all over the world," Penny's Harri profile said.

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