In Reply to: Re: Nobody steps in to save poor homeless people with mental heal posted by russsmith on December 26, 2024 at 18:52:28
has to be politicized. That aside, like you I'm surprised he wasn't convicted if in fact the other guy told him he was going to kill Neely.
That would be the key question for me as a juror. Did Penny know Neely was unconscious and not just still, and did he know for a fact that holding someone in a choke hold beyond X number of minutes would cause death? If he was told in training that maintaining a choke hold for more than X minutes may result in death then he should have been convicted.
Not only that but he could have kept Neely restrained and just eased up on the pressure cutting of his air or blood supply without releasing him. It sounds to me like Penny was poorly trained and didn't know what he was doing.
Regardless of all that, it's ridiculous to label the public as reacting to one incident that few witnessed. It's common sense that people often don't engage in helping because they are waiting on someone else to do it, or they are afraid, or they don't know what to do.