The Scene
Democrats who represent New York City in the House and Senate had muted, mixed reactions to Monday’s acquittal of Daniel Penny – a break from progressive and racial justice activists back home, and a sign of how far the party has shifted away from its social justice posture of just a few years earlier.
“It’s a New York jury. I can’t say it was a gerrymandered jury,” said Rep. Greg Meeks, the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party. “I’m not sitting there, hearing all the evidence. The jury made a decision.”
Republicans hailed the verdict. Moments after Penny was found not guilty for the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man he had held in a fatal chokehold after threatening subway passengers, House Speaker Mike Johnson called the defendant a “hero who saved lives.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had condemned Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg over his prosecution of Donald Trump, credited the jury “for doing the right thing,” and incoming Vice President JD Vance called it “a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted.”
By contrast, the party’s New York-heavy leadership, including House Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, and incoming Congressional Black Congress chair Yvette Clarke, said nothing about the verdict on Tuesday.
Just one New York Democrat criticized it. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who represents a sliver of the Bronx and lost his 2024 primary after heavy spending by pro-Israel groups, published a 12-post X thread addressed “to white people,” linking Neely’s death to the killings of George Floyd, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, and Breonna Taylor.
“He was sick. He was not a threat. He was subdued. Still not a threat,” wrote Bowman of Neely. “Daniel Penny choked him for 6 minutes. And killed him. We all watched it on camera, and he was still acquitted.”
No other congressional Democrat from New York fully echoed Bowman on Tuesday; conservative X accounts recirculated a May 2023 TikTok interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, criticizing Penny for not expressing “remorse,” but she did not react to the verdict. Manhattan Rep. Jerry Nadler, who said he “would have decided the case the other way,” added that he understood why Penny was acquitted.
“I think it’s a sign of how scared people are of the conditions in the subways, even though, objectively, crime rates are down,” Nadler told Semafor.
The View From Activists
Some of the most prominent progressive groups in New York, and America, lambasted the verdict and fretted that it would put more Black people at risk.
The national NAACP said on Monday that the verdict had “given license for vigilante justice to be waged on the Black community without consequence.” The state Working Families Party, which has given its ballot line to most of the New York Democratic delegation, said that “Eric Adams and his administration failed to call Neely’s death what it was: a modern-day lynching.” And Jumaane Williams, the city Public Advocate elected with WFP support, said “the system was okay with violence against marginalized people” like Neely, and that the tragedy would not have happened had the two men’s races been reversed.
The View From Democrats
While Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett shared the sentiments of activists, calling the verdict a “miscarriage of justice,” most New York Democrats who talked to Semafor on Tuesday took another view.
“I think everyone who does not sit in a courtroom for an entire trial should be careful about reaching judgments or conclusions about any given case,” said Brooklyn Rep. Dan Goldman, who had previously called Neely’s death a “heartbreaking” tragedy. “What something may look like on a video may ultimately be significantly changed by the law or the evidence.”
Queens Rep. Grace Meng called the Penny case “sad,” and “obviously, one that shouldn’t have happened.” Neely had bounced in and out of the city’s criminal justice and mental health systems before the confrontation with Penny, and “in New York and around the country, we need to invest more in mental health resources. The victim should never have been in that situation.”
But Meng disagreed with the “lynching” characterization from New York WFP. “That would not be my take,” she said. Rep. Tom Suozzi, whose district covers a small part of Queens and a larger part of Long Island, said he supported the jury’s decision.
“I think it’s good practice for Democrats and Republicans to follow the jury system we’ve set up in our country,” he said. “That’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”
The View From Republicans
New York Rep. Mike Lawler, who both parties see as a potential candidate for governor next year, told Semafor that the verdict was an embarrassment to DA Bragg and to Democrats who had defended his conduct in the job – including the Trump prosecution.“These are the same people who fundamentally believe that violent criminals should be released back out onto the streets, but have no problem prosecuting law-abiding citizens,” Lawler told Semafor. “I’m not surprised that my colleagues had no comment on what was a just verdict.”
Dave and Kadia’s View
The Democrats’ hard thinking about what went wrong for them this year is happening in public and in private, in what they say and what they choose not to.
It’s significant that just one New York Democrat, who is already heading for the exits, put the Penny verdict in the larger context of racial justice movements and police abuse.
In 2020, Democrats often walked in step – and, just once, in kente cloth – with the Black Lives Matter movement. They didn’t do so this week, and that says something about how they are thinking about their image after 2024 election losses. New York City and its suburbs led the way on that.