A U.S. Marine veteran pleaded not guilty Wednesday in the fatal chokehold of a man who was behaving erratically on a New York City subway train.Daniel Penny, 24, pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the May 1 death of Jordan Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator who was shouting and begging for money when Penny pinned him to the floor of the moving subway car with the help of two other passengers and held him in a chokehold for more than three minutes.Neely, 30, lost consciousness during the struggle and was pronounced dead at a hospital.A grand jury voted to indict Penny on updated charges earlier this month. Wednesday's arraignment on the charges lasted mere minutes. Penny, who is free on bond, only uttered the words “not guilty” before he left the courtroom with his lawyers.Penny, who served in the Marines for four years and was discharged in 2021, has said he acted to protect himself and others from Neely, who shouted “I’m gonna’ kill you” and said he was “ready to die” or go to jail for life.“He was yelling in their faces saying these threats,” Penny said in a video released by his attorneys. “I just couldn’t sit still.”Neely's family members and their supporters have said Neely, who struggled with mental illness and homelessness, was crying out for help and was met with violence.“What happened to Jordan was a crime and this family shouldn’t have to stand by themselves,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said at Neely's May 19 funeral.Neely's death aboard an F train in Manhattan quickly became a flashpoint in the nation's debates over racial justice and crime, with Republican politicians including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailing Penny as a hero while Sharpton and others compared the death of Neely, who was Black, at the hands of Penny, who is white, to the 1984 subway shooting of four Black men by Bernhard Goetz, a white man dubbed the “subway vigilante” who was eventually acquitted of charges in the shooting except for carrying an unlicensed gun.

A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who held Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold on the New York City subway, according to a source with knowledge of the case. Penny, 24, was indicted on second-degree manslaughter charges. Penny surrendered to police last month to face a second-degree manslaughter charge. He has since been out on a $100,000 bond. Penny held Neely, a homeless man and street artist, in a chokehold on the subway train on May 1 after Neely began shouting at passengers that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care whether he died. Penny forced 30-year-old Neely to the train floor and restrained him in a chokehold until he stopped breathing. A medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide. Video above: Rev. Al Sharpton delivers Jordan Neely's eulogyCNN has reached out to Penny’s attorneys and the attorneys representing Neely’s family.In May, Penny told the New York Post he was “deeply saddened by the loss of life,” amid what has become a contentious homicide case that has highlighted the city’s handling of unhoused people.Neely was on a New York City Department of Homeless Services list of the city’s homeless with acute needs – sometimes referred to internally as the “Top 50” list – because people on the list tend to disappear, a source told CNN.Penny told the newspaper he would take action in a similar situation again, “if there was a threat and danger in the present.” Penny said he is not a white supremacist and race was not a factor.In response to the May interview, Neely family attorneys called Penny a “killer.”“This is an advertisement to soften the public’s view of Daniel Penny who choked Jordan Neely to death. We never called him a white supremacist, we called him a killer,” attorneys Donte Mills and Lennon Edwards said at the time. “We want to know why he didn’t let go of that chokehold until Jordan was dead.”Neely’s killing, part of which was captured on video that was posted online, sparked demonstrations calling for justice in his case as Manhattan prosecutors spent days deliberating how to proceed before apprehending and charging Penny.

Two subway trains collided between two stations Saturday in Mexico City, killing at least one person and injuring 41, authorities said.Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said on her Twitter account that the accident happened on Line 3 of the capital’s Metro system, without specifying the cause of the crash between the Potrero and La Raza stations.Sheinbaum said one woman was killed and 57 people injured, who were taken to seven hospitals. Four people were trapped in the wreckage for a time, including the driver of one of the trains, who was reported in serious condition.Dozens of police and soldiers swarmed into the nearby subway stations, while ambulances and rescue teams arrived to treat the injured.Edgar Montiel, an electrician who was on one on the trains, said he felt lucky because he had decided at the last minute to enter the next-to-last car rather than the rearmost car, which was smashed up in the crash.“It sounded very strong. I just closed my eyes when I felt the sheets of the car bend and throw me,” Montiel told The Associated Press.He said he remained on the floor of the car with several passengers amid screams and cries asking for help.“The power went out to the subway and a lot of smoke began to come out that was suffocating us. We could not breathe well,” he said.Montiel, who had injuries to his left arm and leg, said the occupants of his car had to wait about 30 minutes until paramedics arrived to tend to the injured and help everyone exit the car.In lamenting the accident, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on his Twitter account that the federal government was supporting the city officials dealing with the accident.In May 2021, an elevated section of the subway system collapsed, causing 26 deaths and injuring nearly 100 people. An investigation blamed the structural failure on deficiencies in the construction process, and 10 former officials have been charged with homicide, injury and damage to property.The Mexico City subway system has 226.5 kilometers (141 miles) of track and 195 stations. It serves an average of 4.6 million passengers every day.

A woman was pushed to her death in front of a subway train at the Times Square station Saturday, police said, a little more than a week after the mayor and governor announced plans to boost subway policing and outreach to homeless people in New York City's streets and trains.The man believed responsible fled the scene but turned himself in to transit police a short time later, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at a news conference with Mayor Eric Adams at the station.The 40-year-old victim, identified as Michelle Alyssa Go of New York, was waiting for a southbound R train around 9:40 a.m. when she was apparently shoved, according to police.“This incident was unprovoked, and the victim does not appear to have had any interaction with the subject,” Sewell said.A second woman told police the man had approached her minutes earlier and she feared he would push her onto the tracks.“He approaches her and he gets in her space. She gets very, very alarmed,” Assistant Chief Jason Wilcox said, describing the earlier encounter. “She tries to move away from him and he gets close to her, and she feels that he was about to physically push her onto the train. As she’s walking away she witnesses the crime where he pushes our other victim in front of the train.”Police on Saturday night identified the suspect as 61-year-old Simon Martial. Martial, who police said is homeless, was charged with second-degree murder. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney who could comment.Wilcox said Martial has a criminal history and has been on parole.“He does have in the past three emotionally disturbed encounters with us that we have documented,” he said.Subway conditions and safety have become a worry for many New Yorkers during the pandemic. Although police statistics show major felonies in the subways have dropped over the past two years, so has ridership, making it difficult to compare.And some recent attacks have gotten public attention and raised alarms. In September, three transit employees were assaulted in separate incidents on one day. Several riders were slashed and assaulted by a group of attackers on a train in lower Manhattan in May, and four separate stabbings — two of them fatal — happened within a few hours on a single subway line in February.In recent months there have been several instances of people being stabbed, assaulted or shoved onto the tracks at stations in the Bronx, Brooklyn and at Times Square.Saturday's attack against Go, who was of Asian descent, also raised concerns amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in New York and around the country. Police officials said the killing, including whether it was a hate crime, was under investigation, but noted that the first woman Martial allegedly approached was not Asian. Martial is Black.“This latest attack causing the death of an Asian American woman in the Times Square subway station is particularly horrifying for our community," Margaret Fung, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said. She said the community was still mourning the Dec. 31 death of Yao Pan Ma, a Chinese immigrant who was attacked in April while collecting cans in East Harlem."These attacks have left Asian Americans across the city and across the country feeling vulnerable and they must stop,” Fung said in a statement.Adams, who has been mayor for two weeks, has noted that a perception of danger could drive more people to eschew the subway, complicating the city's economic recovery as it tries to draw people back to offices, tourist attractions and more.“We want to continue to highlight how imperative it is that people receive the right mental health services, particularly on our subway system,” the mayor said Saturday. “To lose a New Yorker in this fashion will only continue to elevate the fears of individuals not using our subway system.”“Our recovery is dependent on the public safety in this city and in the subway system,” Adams said.Under his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, the city repeatedly said it was deploying more police to subways after attacks last year and pressure from transit officials. The agency that runs the subway system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, sped up work to install security cameras in all 472 subway stations citywide, finishing that project in September.However, the city also has repeatedly faced complaints in recent years about heavy-handed policing in subways. Protests erupted, for example, after police were seen on bystander video handcuffing a woman they said was selling churros without a license at subway stations in 2019 and punching a Black teenager during a brawl on a subway platform that same year.Six police officers were assigned to the station Saturday, authorities said.Joining Adams last week to discuss the state of the subways, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was planning to put together five teams of social workers and medical professionals to help the city guide people living on streets and subways to shelter, housing and services.Both Hochul and Adams are Democrats.

A New York family who came together by chance 21 years ago has now shared their remarkable story in a children's book.Pete Mercurio was walking out the door to meet his then-partner (now husband) Danny Stewart for dinner in August 2000 when his phone rang. It was Stewart, calling to tell him he'd be late. He'd found an abandoned baby in the subway and had called 911 from a payphone.Stewart, a social worker, had spotted a tiny bundle wrapped in a sweatshirt while walking through an eerily empty station. At first, he thought it was a doll, perhaps left behind by a child, until he saw a tiny leg move. He quickly discovered it was a newborn baby, the umbilical cord still attached.Mercurio, who authored a book about this chance encounter, spoke to CNN about that night, and about how he and Stewart ended up raising the baby as their own.The baby boy was just hours old when Stewart found him"He had actually tried to get on an express train and couldn't get on one," Mercurio recalls of Stewart's path that fateful day. "The fact that he even got on a local was kind of miraculous because who knows if he had gotten on an express if he'd even he even had found the baby."Mercurio says something made Stewart glance back at the bundle and see the newborn's small motion. The baby, a boy, was alive and breathing. Authorities said he was just hours old when they arrived.Mercurio ran to the station, a block away from his apartment, and found Stewart there with two police officers."One of them was carrying the baby in his arms," he says. "Just a chill raced up my spine. Like, it's an unbelievable thing."The baby boy was transported to a nearby hospital, and the men were overcome with emotion at what had just occurred."At one point I just turned to Danny and I said, 'You're going to be -- we're going to be -- connected to this baby in some way or another for the rest of your life.' I said, 'Maybe not tomorrow or next week or a year or five years from now, but eventually he's gonna learn about this night and he might want to try to find you and maybe we can send a gift or be in touch with him on this day, every year.'"The couple had no idea what was about to unfold.A stroke of good luck smoothed the adoption processThe baby, who was named Daniel Ace Doe after Stewart and the A/C/E subway line, was in the state's care while a citywide search was underway for the boy's parents.Three months later, Stewart was asked to testify at a hearing about the day the baby was found. The judge asked him an unexpected question."In December of 2000, at that hearing, the judge asked him, 'Would you be interested in adopting?' He said, 'Yes, but I know it's not that easy.' She said, 'Well, it can be.' We didn't know what she meant by that," Mercurio says.The two became foster parents to the baby, who they named Kevin, and adopted him two years later in December of 2002."And then that was it. We never saw the judge again. And in 2012, when we were deciding to get married, Kevin on a walk to school said he knew that there was a judge involved in creating our family," Mercurio says."We shared everything with him, so he knew everything. He said, 'Don't judges marry people?' So, I said, 'Do you want to meet the judge that finalized your adoption?' And he nodded his head. And so that's how I got in touch with the judge again, ten years later."When the couple spoke with the judge, they asked her how she was able to help facilitate Kevin's adoption so quickly.In one of many small miracles that brought Kevin to them, the judge said that at the time Kevin was found there was a pilot program in New York that gave her the authority to expedite the adoption process in specific cases of abandonment to place a baby in a loving home."She was able to make quick decisions to place that baby in a pre-adoptive home as quickly as possible," Mercurio says. "So he didn't languish in the system."That pilot program lasted only six months and was then discontinued, according to Mercurio. "So many little things like that added up without our knowledge," Mercurio says.Kevin is now a senior in college. He's not sure about trying to find his birth parentsAt the time Kevin arrived, the couple didn't have a lot of money. They were in student-loan debt, but they made it work. Family and friends got them everything they needed for Kevin, and they figured it out along the way.Kevin, now 21, is a student at Swarthmore College. Mercurio is sharing their family's story with Kevin and Stewart's encouragement, but they declined to be interviewed."We still can't believe it. I mean, we believe it because we have a 21-year-old kid that's graduating from college this spring," Mercurio says. "I love this kid more than anything in the world, I really didn't know this kind of love existed in this world until my son came into our life. And Danny feels the same way."As Kevin grew up, the two discussed their family story with him."We talked about how our family became a family openly in front of him. When he went in social gatherings, anybody would ask, we didn't shield him from hearing it from a very young age," Mercurio says.They wanted Kevin to feel positive about their family origin story, so Mercurio wrote a book about it that they read to him every night. When he was five, Kevin realized it was about him."I pasted together a book of his story, which tells the whole thing about Danny being on the subway and the baby being found," Mercurio says.Last year, that very personal story was published with the title "Our Subway Baby," which Mercurio calls a "love letter to our son."While Kevin's biological parents are still unknown, Mercurio says they feel only compassion for them."One way or another, that's a desperate measure to take. And I can only imagine the anguish that was leaving your child," he says. "We've always told Kevin from a very young age that he was left out of love, so that he could be found and cared for. We never used the word abandonment or abandoned. We said she left you where you could be found by us."

NEW YORK —

A New York family who came together by chance 21 years ago has now shared their remarkable story in a children's book.

Pete Mercurio was walking out the door to meet his then-partner (now husband) Danny Stewart for dinner in August 2000 when his phone rang. It was Stewart, calling to tell him he'd be late. He'd found an abandoned baby in the subway and had called 911 from a payphone.

Stewart, a social worker, had spotted a tiny bundle wrapped in a sweatshirt while walking through an eerily empty station. At first, he thought it was a doll, perhaps left behind by a child, until he saw a tiny leg move. He quickly discovered it was a newborn baby, the umbilical cord still attached.

Mercurio, who authored a book about this chance encounter, spoke to CNN about that night, and about how he and Stewart ended up raising the baby as their own.

The baby boy was just hours old when Stewart found him

"He had actually tried to get on an express train and couldn't get on one," Mercurio recalls of Stewart's path that fateful day. "The fact that he even got on a local was kind of miraculous because who knows if he had gotten on an express if he'd even he even had found the baby."

Mercurio says something made Stewart glance back at the bundle and see the newborn's small motion. The baby, a boy, was alive and breathing. Authorities said he was just hours old when they arrived.

Mercurio ran to the station, a block away from his apartment, and found Stewart there with two police officers.

"One of them was carrying the baby in his arms," he says. "Just a chill raced up my spine. Like, it's an unbelievable thing."

The baby boy was transported to a nearby hospital, and the men were overcome with emotion at what had just occurred.

"At one point I just turned to Danny and I said, 'You're going to be -- we're going to be -- connected to this baby in some way or another for the rest of your life.' I said, 'Maybe not tomorrow or next week or a year or five years from now, but eventually he's gonna learn about this night and he might want to try to find you and maybe we can send a gift or be in touch with him on this day, every year.'"

The couple had no idea what was about to unfold.

A stroke of good luck smoothed the adoption process

Picasa

The baby, who was named Daniel Ace Doe after Stewart and the A/C/E subway line, was in the state's care while a citywide search was underway for the boy's parents.

Three months later, Stewart was asked to testify at a hearing about the day the baby was found. The judge asked him an unexpected question.

"In December of 2000, at that hearing, the judge asked him, 'Would you be interested in adopting?' He said, 'Yes, but I know it's not that easy.' She said, 'Well, it can be.' We didn't know what she meant by that," Mercurio says.

The two became foster parents to the baby, who they named Kevin, and adopted him two years later in December of 2002.

"And then that was it. We never saw the judge again. And in 2012, when we were deciding to get married, Kevin on a walk to school said he knew that there was a judge involved in creating our family," Mercurio says.

"We shared everything with him, so he knew everything. He said, 'Don't judges marry people?' So, I said, 'Do you want to meet the judge that finalized your adoption?' And he nodded his head. And so that's how I got in touch with the judge again, ten years later."

Peter Mercurio

When the couple spoke with the judge, they asked her how she was able to help facilitate Kevin's adoption so quickly.

In one of many small miracles that brought Kevin to them, the judge said that at the time Kevin was found there was a pilot program in New York that gave her the authority to expedite the adoption process in specific cases of abandonment to place a baby in a loving home.

"She was able to make quick decisions to place that baby in a pre-adoptive home as quickly as possible," Mercurio says. "So he didn't languish in the system."

That pilot program lasted only six months and was then discontinued, according to Mercurio.

"So many little things like that added up without our knowledge," Mercurio says.

Kevin is now a senior in college. He's not sure about trying to find his birth parents

At the time Kevin arrived, the couple didn't have a lot of money. They were in student-loan debt, but they made it work. Family and friends got them everything they needed for Kevin, and they figured it out along the way.

Kevin, now 21, is a student at Swarthmore College. Mercurio is sharing their family's story with Kevin and Stewart's encouragement, but they declined to be interviewed.

Picasa

"We still can't believe it. I mean, we believe it because we have a 21-year-old kid that's graduating from college this spring," Mercurio says. "I love this kid more than anything in the world, I really didn't know this kind of love existed in this world until my son came into our life. And Danny feels the same way."

As Kevin grew up, the two discussed their family story with him.

"We talked about how our family became a family openly in front of him. When he went in social gatherings, [if] anybody would ask, we didn't shield him from hearing it from a very young age," Mercurio says.

They wanted Kevin to feel positive about their family origin story, so Mercurio wrote a book about it that they read to him every night. When he was five, Kevin realized it was about him.

"I pasted together a book of his story, which tells the whole thing about Danny being on the subway and the baby being found," Mercurio says.

Last year, that very personal story was published with the title "Our Subway Baby," which Mercurio calls a "love letter to our son."

While Kevin's biological parents are still unknown, Mercurio says they feel only compassion for them.

"One way or another, that's a desperate measure to take. And I can only imagine the anguish that was leaving your child," he says. "We've always told Kevin from a very young age that he was left out of love, so that he could be found and cared for. We never used the word abandonment or abandoned. We said she left you where you could be found by us."