Jordan Neely chokehold death witness says Daniel Penny a 'hero'

A witness to the May 1 death of a 30-year-old homeless man on a New York City F train has called the man who placed him in a fatal chokehold a "hero" and contended that he acted in self-defense.

"It was self-defense, and I believe in my heart that he saved a lot of people that day that could have gotten hurt," one passenger on the train that witnessed the incident told Fox News on Thursday.

Daniel Penny, a former Marine, is facing second-degree manslaughter charges stemming from the incident from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. He has not entered a plea, is free on bail, and due back in court on July 17.

Video footage showed Penny restraining Jordan Neely on the train via a chokehold, with at least two other passengers aiding him. Witnesses have stated that Neely was threatening passengers and throwing trash.

The witness who spoke to Fox has described herself as a woman of color and has lived in the city for more than 50 years. She reportedly told the outlet that Bragg should not have pursued charges against Penny and corroborated earlier accounts of Neely's threatening actions.

"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 told Fox. "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.'"

"The people on that train, we were scared. We were scared for our lives," she added. "Mr. Penny cared for people. That’s what he did. That is his crime."

She further pointed to Penny's actions in the wake of the development, noting that he did not attempt to evade authorities.

"Nobody wants to kill anybody. Mr. Penny didn’t want to kill that man," she asserted. "You should have seen the way Mr. Penny looked. He was distraught. He was very, very, very visibly distressed. And he didn’t go. He didn’t run. He stayed." 

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.