Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg faces new scrutiny over the death of Jordan Neely

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is again facing scrutiny as his office weighs whether to press charges in the killing of Jordan Neely, 30, homeless New Yorker who died after Daniel Penny, 24, a former Marine, put him in a lethal chokehold while riding the F train through the Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo last week.

For more than a year, Bragg has faced criticism on all sides as he leads a prosecutor’s office that is grappling with a pandemic-era rise in crime, a homelessness crisis on the subway system and dire conditions in the city’s jails.

Experts say this moment could have a pivotal impact on Bragg’s prosecutorial career, as he weighs whether to bring charges in a case that has garnered national attention and touches on some of the most polarizing issues at the center of current public debates.

"Sometimes people peer into the silence and look at that as if the office isn't doing anything or it's not important,” Bragg said during a public safety summit on Thursday. “It's quite the contrary. It is because it's our solemn obligation to assess the facts and apply the facts to the law, and how gravely and seriously we take that, that we don't speak, lest we impair the investigation."

Bragg was elected in 2021 as the first African American to hold the position of Manhattan DA, running as a progressive with a pledge to balance public safety with police accountability and a shift away from mass incarceration.

Since taking office, he has formed new units to focus on tenant protections and wage theft, created a program to divert some people from the court system and also assembled a team to reinvestigate potentially wrongful convictions.

At the same time, Bragg's prosecutorial decisions have been subject to constant scrutiny, from his “day one” memo about how his office would handle lower-level criminal offenses — which he later walked back — to his recent decision to move forward with a case against former President Donald Trump on multiple counts of business fraud. Congressmembers have even threatened to withhold federal funding for Bragg’s office — jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars for crime victims and felony prosecutions.

Maya Wiley, a civil rights attorney who is currently president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, echoed Bragg’s remarks earlier this week, saying he needs to limit his public comments while evidence is gathered.

“An aggressive investigation is also a quiet one,” said Wiley, who previously served in former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. “That’s very tough when you are someone running for public office, or who will seek re-election, because you can’t politic out in public on these cases.”

Wiley has navigated similar challenges as counsel to de Blasio and chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an NYPD watchdog agency, in 2016 and 2017.

Wiley said what is so difficult for any DA, including Bragg, is to conduct a thorough investigation that protects the prosecutorial integrity of a case, and keeping it away from cameras. She said it was important to protect the evidence to ensure prosecutors are not tipping their hand in public.

“If you’re Alvin Bragg, you’re thinking about this case in relationship to what it means to have a successful prosecution,” she said.

Elected officials and civil rights leaders have accused Bragg’s critics of using racist dog whistles to undermine him and question his commitment to holding people who commit crimes accountable.

Bragg, a life-long Harlemite, has tried to bring a nuanced perspective to conversations about public safety, noting that both police and fellow residents have pointed guns at him.

Wiley talked about two recent high-profile deaths of Black men in New York — Neely and Eric Garner, who died in 2014 on Staten Island when a police officer placed him in a chokehold during an attempted arrest for the alleged sale of loose cigarettes.

“What every public official has to know, recognize, and address is that public safety means being safe even when you're Black and upset,” Wiley said, referencing how both men’s behavior was characterized by law enforcement.

Looking to the elections

Former Republican congressmember and candidate for New York governor Lee Zeldin zeroed in on Bragg as his political target throughout his campaign last year. He repeatedly vowed to fire Bragg on day one, and has continued to overtly criticize Bragg’s conduct.

Since Neely’s death, Zeldin has drawn comparisons between the deadly subway incident and another case of so-called “vigilante justice.” Last summer, the then-gubernatorial candidate criticized Bragg’s prosecution of Harlem bodega worker Jose Alba, who fatally stabbed a man he said had attacked him behind the counter.

In that case, Bragg was quick to charge Alba with murder and criminal possession of a weapon, sparking the ire of bodega workers and tough-on-crime conservatives who saw the clerk as a victim, not a criminal. After facing intense public backlash and negative coverage in the tabloids, the DA ended up dropping the charges.

“That case should have never been brought,” said Alba’s attorney, Imran Ansari. “He should have never been locked up for almost a week at Rikers in deplorable conditions.”

Nationally, Republicans have also seized on Bragg’s handling of Alba’s case to score political points. Through his attorney Ansari, Alba was one of eight witnesses called at a GOP-led House Judiciary Committee field hearing in Manhattan last month that was targeting Bragg under the guise of “Violent Crime in Manhattan,” despite crime statistics that show shootings and homicides have dropped since Bragg took office.

The hearing, which Democrats blasted as political theater, came on the heels of Bragg’s indictment of Trump on 34 counts of business fraud.

Those close to Bragg argue that his decades of legal experience guide his work over any political considerations.

“What makes Alvin special is that he is first and foremost a legal actor and not a political one, which is to say that politics is not what motivates and drives him,” said Phil Walzak, an external adviser to Bragg who served as de Blasio’s first press secretary and later as the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of public information under Police Commissioner James O’Neill.

Legal experts have noted that the complexities of the Neely case could make it difficult for Bragg to bring charges, even though the city's medical examiner has ruled Neely’s death a homicide. The state’s self-defense law allows people to use deadly force if they believe their life or someone else’s is at imminent risk. A more serious charge, like murder, would also require prosecutors to prove that Penny intended to kill Neely — which his attorneys have denied.

A potential case against Penny brings its own set of political challenges. One of Penny’s attorneys, Thomas Kenniff, was the Republican candidate who ran against Bragg in 2021. Bragg resoundingly defeated him, garnering more than 75% of the vote in the general election.

Still there are members of Bragg’s own party who say he is weakened when it comes to a re-election bid because of the persistent scrutiny of high-profile cases and what some observers call a novice approach to dealing with the press.

“Your whole career could turn on one case,” said George Artz, a Democratic press and campaign consultant who worked for Mayor Ed Koch in City Hall and worked on many campaigns, including those of Bragg's predecessors Robert Morgenthau and Cyrus Vance.

He described Morgenthau, who served more than three decades as Manhattan DA, as more adept at handling press coverage even during tough cases, walking into editorial offices and giving out stories to reporters that covered the beat.

“You don’t see that with Bragg’s office,” he said.

On the political right, Artz said Bragg is still haunted by his day one memo and a perception that he is soft on crime. But he dismissed the possibility of a successful electoral challenge from Republicans in Manhattan. He said the biggest obstacle facing Bragg will be primary campaigns by other Democrats.

His firm George Artz Communications worked for moderate Democrat Elizabeth Crotty in the eight-way primary that Bragg won. Artz said Bragg is a weakened candidate because of the negative headlines.

“Unless some miracle happens and he gets better press,” said Artz, “he’s going to be in the fight for his political life.”

Bragg does not face re-election until 2025.