Here is a witness that came forward to tell the press what she saw:
A straphanger who was on the subway when former Marine Daniel Penny placed Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold said Thursday she’s “praying” for Penny after it was revealed the 24-year-old would face charges tied to the high-profile case.
“I hope he has a great lawyer, and I’m praying for him,” the 66-year-old woman, who did not want to be identified, told The Post Thursday night. “And I pray that he gets treated fairly, I really do. Because after all of this ensued, I went back and made sure that I said ‘Thank you’ to him.”
The subway rider said Neely, who had a history of mental illness, was threatening passengers after he hopped on an F train in Manhattan.
“He said, ‘I don’t care. I’ll take a bullet, I’ll go to jail’ because he would kill people on the train,” the woman said of Neely. “He said, ‘I would kill a motherf—er. I don’t care. I’ll take a bullet. I’ll go to jail.’”
The retiree said Penny did not initially engage with Neely during the wild rant until things got out of hand and he felt the urge to step in.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/12/jordan-neely-chokehold-death-witness-praying-for-daniel-penny/And more of Neely's recent violent behavior from the NY Times:
In November 2021, Mr. Neely’s aggression seemed to peak, when he punched a 67-year-old woman in the street on the Lower East Side, breaking her nose, the police said. He was charged with assault and, awaiting the resolution of his case, spent 15 months in jail, the police said, though his family said the stint was shorter.
He pleaded guilty on Feb. 9 of this year, in a carefully planned strategy between the city and his lawyers to allow him to get treatment and stay out of prison. Even the victim signed off on the plan.
“Do you know what the goal is today?” the judge, Ellen M. Biben, asked at the hearing.
“Yes,” Mr. Neely replied.
“What is that goal?”
“To make it physically and mentally to the program.”
He was to go from court to live at a treatment facility in the Bronx, and stay clean for 15 months. In return, his felony conviction would be reduced. He promised to take his medication and to avoid drugs, and not to leave the facility without permission.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to turn things around, and we’re glad to give it to you,” Mary Weisgerber, a prosecutor, said.
“Thank you so much,” Mr. Neely replied.
But just 13 days later, he abandoned the facility. Judge Biben issued a warrant for his arrest.
In March, an outreach worker saw him in the subway, neatly dressed, calm and subdued, and got him a ride to a shelter in the Bronx. (The outreach workers typically do not check for arrest warrants when interacting with homeless people.) But a downward spiral followed.
On April 9, when outreach workers approached him in a subway car at the end of the line in Coney Island, Mr. Neely urinated in front of them. When an outreach worker went to call the police, according to a worker’s notes, Mr. Neely shouted, “Just wait until they get here, I got something for you, just wait and see.”
Officers arrived and ejected Mr. Neely from the train, apparently unaware of the arrest warrant.
Five days after that, an outreach worker saw him in Coney Island and noted that he was aggressive and incoherent. “He could be a harm to others or himself if left untreated,” the worker wrote.
Two weeks later, he was riding an F train in SoHo for what would be the last time.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230507144054/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/nyregion/jordan-neely-daniel-penny-nyc-subway.html
