2024 GOP hopefuls rush to defend Marine who used fatal chokehold

WASHINGTON >> Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged the nation to show Daniel Penny that “America's got his back.” Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley called for New York's governor to pardon Penny, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy donated $10,000 to his legal defense fund.

Republican presidential hopefuls have lined up to support Penny, a 24-yearold U.S. Marine veteran who was caught on video pinning an agitated fellow subway passenger in New York City to the floor in a chokehold. The passenger, 30-year-old Jordan Neely, later died from compression of the neck, according to the medical examiner.

Penny has been charged with manslaughter. His attorneys say he acted in selfdefense.

He already has become a hero to many Republicans, who have trumpeted Penny as a good Samaritan moving to protect others in a Democratic-led city that they say is unsafe — even though criminal justice experts say current crime levels are more comparable to where New York was a decade ago, when people frequently lauded it as America's safest big city.

The GOP support for Penny has been unwavering, despite the fact that Neely, a Black man, never got physical with anyone on the train before he was placed in the chokehold for several minutes by Penny, who is White.

The rush to back Penny recalls how then-President Donald Trump and other top Republicans fiercely supported Kyle Rittenhouse during the 2020 presidential election. Rittenhouse, a White teenager who killed two men and wounded a third during a tumultuous night of protests in Wisconsin over a Black man's death, was acquitted.

More recently, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to pardon Daniel Perry, a White Army sergeant who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fatally shooting an armed man during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in the state's capital of Austin.