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An Arizona congressman plans to award the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest civilian honor, to Daniel Penny, currently a 26-year-old college student on trial in New York on charges of manslaughter for suffocating a homeless person on a subway train in 2023.
“Daniel Penny’s actions illustrate what it means to go against the grain to do the right thing in a world that rewards moral cowardice,” Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz. said Fox News.
“Our ‘justice’ system is grossly corrupt, allowing degenerates to push our laws and our sense of security while punishing the righteous,” added Crane, a former Navy SEAL. “Mr. Penny stood bravely in the gap to defy this corrupt system and protect his fellow Americans. I am immensely proud to introduce this resolution to award him the Congressional Gold Medal for Heroism.”
The draft text of the resolution claims that Penny “protected the women and children of New York City, New York, from violence on May 1, 2023.” and states that “throughout President Biden’s tenure as president, local governments in various cities and states have failed to adequately protect residents and their property from violent criminals.”
Penny faces a criminal trial in New York over the 2023 incident, in which he held street performer Jordan Neely, 30, in a choke hold for nearly six minutes after the homeless man yelled threats at passengers on a Manhattan subway car.
Prosecutors allege that Penny used unnecessary deadly force that killed Neely, while the defense argues that Penny’s actions were justified and that external factors could explain Neely’s death by suffocation.
After jurors spent nearly a week deliberating without reaching a verdict, prosecutors fired felony charge, second-degree murder, on Friday.
Penny’s actions proved to be deeply divisive.
Critics accused the Marine Corps veteran of being a vigilante who went too far.
He was previously New York Public Defender Juamaane Williams said The Independent Public attention surrounding the case has created a “narrative that devalues the life of a homeless black man with mental health issues and encourages an attitude of dehumanization of New Yorkers who need it most.”
Both conservatives and Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams praised Penny.
“Now we’re on the subway where we hear somebody talking about hurting people, killing people,” Adams he said on a radio show in November. “You have someone [Penny] in that metro that responded, doing what we were supposed to do as a city.”
Millions of dollars were raised for Penny’s legal defense through GiveSendGo, a crowdfunding platform popular with right-wing causes and conservative media influencers and politicians greeted Penny as a true “Subway Superman”, an ordinary citizen who returns to the streets in an unsafe city under the leadership of the Democrats.