Accountability for Daniel Penny And Concern For Public Safety Are Not Mutually Exclusive

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Jordan Neely

Can I love and support a family member who was harmed by someone experiencing homelessness and also be against the unnecessary and unjust killing of an unhoused person?”

Jordan Neely

Emma Whitford

A vigil for Jordan Neely held in City Hall Park in May 2023.

Foreshadowing: While I sit at the living room table, reading a jury duty summons, a TV news anchor announces the start of jury selection for the trial in which, “Daniel Penny is accused of killing a homeless man.” More than a year after his death and despite the viral video of him being fatally choked, Jordan Neely is still “a homeless man.” They didn’t even say his name. It’s shocking—what happened in that newsroom, and what happened this week in the jury room.

After news of Penny’s acquittal sets my phone notifications abuzz, I think back to that jury duty summons. I imagine being a juror on the Penny trial. When you put together 12 of anything — disciples, days of Christmas, jurors—there’s a need for balance. My unique perspective would’ve helped keep the scales of justice level. Maybe the injustice of the Penny verdict wouldn’t feel so weighty.

Prior to the start of jury selection in the Penny trial, a relative (let’s call them Anon) dropped a heavy and incendiary text into the family group chat: “A stance against Penny is a stance against me.”  



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