Yes, there are differences between the Daniel Penny case and that of “J train stabber” Jordan Williams.
The man Penny killed, disturbed vagrant Jordan Neely, had not (far as we know) attacked any passengers in the subway car where he was making violent threats.
Williams killed ex-con Devictor Ouedradogo, who had been violently attacking him and his girlfriend.
But really — Williams knifes a guy to death, and he walks. Penny restrains a manic loon who dies in the neckhold, and picks up $100,000 bail and a manslaughter indictment.
Sure looks like Penny’s getting singled out for special treatment.
But whether Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is trying to make an example of Penny because it’s politically convenient (white killer, black victim) is irrelevant to the larger problem.
That would be: Dangerous people running around free in the subway system.
Like Kemal Rideout, the alleged subway slasher. Or Martial Simon, accused of pushing Michelle Go under a train. Or Waheed Foster, who allegedly beat Elisabeth Gomes within an inch of her life in a Queens station. Or Alvin Charles, alleged killer of Tommy Bailey.
And on and on and on.
It’s partly the way New York’s criminal justice “reforms” have made it nigh-impossible to stop thugs when they’re still minor menaces, before they graduate to violent assault, rape or murder. And partly the near-abandonment of fare-beating enforcement, an open invite to any and all wrongdoers: come on down!
Above all, it’s the woefully inadequate means to compel mentally ill people into treatment and to make sure they stay there.
The result? A public-transport system transformed into a playground for the unstable, and a city with a social fabric torn apart by senseless crime and pervasive fear.
So charge Daniel Penny a thousand times over, Alvin.
It won’t fix a damn thing.
