A New York grand jury has indicted a former US Marine who was filmed placing a homeless man in a fatal chokehold on a subway train, reports say.
The decision comes after prosecutors last month charged Daniel Penny with second-degree manslaughter for killing street performer Jordan Neely.
The grand jury decision was necessary for prosecutors to formally charge Mr Penny, who is free on bail.
Mr Penny says he was acting in self-defence during the 1 May incident.
The decision to indict was made on Wednesday, US media reported citing unnamed police officials. A lawyer for Mr Neely’s family told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that the family had been informed of the grand jury’s decision.
The formal charging document is expected to be revealed at a later date. If found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
The 24-year-old former Marine was arrested on 12 May after initially being allowed by police to leave the scene of Mr Neely’s death. He was placed in handcuffs and led into a police station before being released on a $100,000 (£80,000) in-cash bail.
On Sunday, Mr Penny released a video on social media saying he did not intend to kill Mr Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man who was reportedly shouting at subway riders before the struggle began.
“There’s a common misconception that Marines don’t get scared,” he said in the video.
“We’re actually taught one of our core values is courage, and courage is not the absence of fear but how you handle fear,” he added, saying he felt compelled to confront Mr Neely as he acted erratically towards passengers.
“I was scared for myself but I looked around there were women and children, he was yelling in their faces saying these threats. I just couldn’t sit still.”
Video of the incident captured by a freelance journalist on the train shows the former Marine holding Mr Neely around the neck for two minutes and 55 seconds.
In the video released on Sunday, Mr Penny said the whole interaction was less than five minutes.
“I was listening to music at the time, and he was yelling, so I took my headphones out to hear what he was yelling,” he said.
“And the three main threats that he repeated over and over was ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ‘I’m prepared to go to jail for life,’ and ‘I’m willing to die.'”
Family of Mr Neely say that the second-degree manslaughter charge should be upgraded to murder.
The killing shocked the city and led to questions about the safety of public transit and treatment for mentally ill homeless New Yorkers.
Source: bbc.co.uk
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