“A victory for justice” was notched in a Manhattan courtroom last week, said Nicole Russell in USA Today, and a “hero” walked free. Marine veteran Daniel Penny, 26, was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in a case that sharply divided New Yorkers. Penny, an architecture student, was riding the subway when Jordan Neely, a mentally ill homeless man, burst into the car, terrifying commuters with his screams that he was “ready to die” and would “kill a motherf---er.” Trying to protect his fellow riders, Penny restrained Neely in a chokehold and held him for police; Neely died soon after. Penny, who’d already beaten a second-degree man- slaughter charge when the jury deadlocked, should never have been charged, said National Review in an editorial. But he is white and Neely was Black, so typically soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “decided that social justice demanded a scalp,” never mind “actual justice.” 

This case was shot through with racial injustice, said Moustafa Bayoumi in The Guardian. Penny is the latest in a long line of white vigilantes who’ve been celebrated instead of punished for killing Blacks. Within 30 seconds of Neely entering the train car, unarmed and “clearly in distress,” Penny had him in a hold called “the blood choke,” which his own Marine trainer testified he used “improperly.” It can render someone unconscious in 13 seconds, but Penny held Neely for about six minutes, and for nearly a minute after Neely went limp. The Right still cheered him. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Penny deserved a “medal”; former Rep. Matt Gaetz called him a “Subway Superman”; and Vice President-elect JD Vance said his prosecution was a “scandal.” Days after being acquitted, Penny was a guest of President-elect Donald Trump at the Army-Navy game. 

This tragedy should never have happened, said The Washington Post. New York City “failed Neely,” a mentally ill substance abuser who “suffered from a lifetime of trauma.” Repeatedly hospitalized and arrested for crimes including assault and indecent exposure, he “remained in crisis”; sentenced to a 15-month treatment program, he walked away from the facility after less than two weeks. Progressive cities like New York too often treat “anarchy as a form of welfare,” letting antisocial behavior slide lest the enforcement of rules “harm marginalized people.” That sets the stage for vigilantism. Whether or not you think Penny’s actions were justified, “the largest share of the blame goes to the system that put those two men in the same subway car.”