A Black Lives Matter activist called on “black vigilantes” to avenge Jordan Neely’s death immediately following Daniel Penny’s acquittal Monday.
“People want to jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud, how about we do the same when they attempt to oppress us,” Walter ‘Hawk’ Newsome, a BLM leader who describes himself as Jordan Neely’s uncle and was in the courtroom every day of the trial, said outside the Manhattan courthouse.
“Just like everybody else seeks justice on their own. Just like everybody else has vigilantes. We need some black vigilantes,” he told reporters and protesters who had turned out daily in support of Neely during the weekslong trial.
“F—k America. How dare you laugh and cheer when someone gets away with murdering us,” Newsome added, apparently referencing the applause that erupted in the courtroom after the verdict. “Racists: burn in hell.”
Jordan Neely’s father also addressed the crowd, lamenting the watershed verdict.
“My son didn’t have to go through this. I didn’t have to go through this either,” a dejected-looking Andre Zachary told reporters. “It hurts. It really, really hurts.”
“What are we gonna do, people? What’s gonna happen to us now? I had enough of this,” Zachary said. “The system is rigged. C’mon, people. Let’s do something about this.”
Inside the courtroom, Zachary had to be escorted out while jawing at the audience as applause erupted when the jury announced it had found Penny not guilty of criminal negligent homicide in Neely’s death on a Manhattan F train in May 2023.
The distraught father immediately got into a shouting match with someone behind him.
He appeared to have yelled, “You clapping when my son got f—ing killed.”
Court officers quickly moved in, telling Zachary, “Out, out — you’re out.”
The highly-charged and divisive case took a turn last week when Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley agreed with a prosecution request to drop the top manslaughter charge against Penny, a 26-year-old Marine vet, and consider only the lesser negligent homicide charge.
The jury returned the not guilty verdict on Monday.
“The jury has now spoken,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “At the Manhattan D.A.’s Office we deeply respect the jury process and we respect their verdict.”
Penny, 26, claimed he grabbed a deranged Neely and put him in a chokehold to protect other passengers after the 30-year-old yelled, “Someone’s going to die today!”
Zachary sued Penny last week, accusing him of negligent contact, assault and battery leading to the death of his son.
The suit, filed in New York Supreme Court, said Zachary “demands judgment awarding damages in a sum which exceeds the jurisdictional limits of all lower Courts which would otherwise have jurisdiction.”
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