NEW YORK – Jurors on Monday saw a video of Daniel Penny grabbing a man by the throat on a subway train while another passenger begged the Marine veteran to let him go.

The video, filmed by a high school student right outside the train, gave the anonymous jury their first first-hand view of suffocation to the heart of the manslaughter trial surrounding the death of Jordan Neely in 2023.

While a freelance journalist’s video of the encounter was widely seen in the following days, it is unclear if the student’s video had ever been made public before.

Prosecutors say Penny, 25, killed Neely, 30, who was homeless and mentally ill. He had frightened passengers on the train with angry statements that some riders found threatening.

Penny pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say he was defending himself and his fellow passengers, stepping in during one of the volatile moments that New Yorkers fear but are too shy to face.

Neely, 30, known to some subway riders for doing Michael Jackson impersonations, had mental health and drug problems. His family said his life fell apart after his mother was murdered when he was a teenager and he testified at the trial that led to her boyfriend’s conviction.

He crossed paths with Penny—an architecture student who served four years in the Marines—on a subway train on May 1, 2023.

Neely was homeless, broke, hungry, thirsty and so desperate that he was willing to go to jail, he shouted to passengers who later recalled his statements to the police.

He made high school student Ivette Rosario so nervous she thought she was going to pass out, she testified Monday. She had seen outbursts on the subway before, “but not like this,” she said.

“Because of the tone, I was pretty scared and scared of what was said,” Rosario, 19, said. She told jurors she looked down, hoping the train would reach a station before anything else happened.

Then she heard the sound of someone falling, looked up to see Neely on the floor with Penny’s arm around her neck.

The train soon stopped, and she got off, but continued to watch from the platform. She would soon make one of the first calls to 911 about what was happening. But first, her trembling hand tapped her phone’s record.

She shot a video of Penny on the floor — cradling Neely’s head in the crook of her left arm, her right hand over Neely’s head — and an unseen bystander saying Neely was dying and urging, “Let her go!”

Rosario said she did not see Neely specifically address or approach anyone.

But according to the defense, Neely lunged at a woman with a stroller and said she was “going to kill,” and Penny felt she had to take action.

Prosecutors do not allege Penny intended to kill, nor do they charge him for initially deciding to try to stop Neely’s threatening behavior. But Penny is said to have gone overboard choking the man for about six minutes, even after passengers were able to exit the train and Neely stopped moving for nearly a minute.

Defense attorneys say Penny continued to hold onto Neely because she sometimes tried to get up. Defense also challenges finding of medical examiners that suffocation killed him.

An attorney for Neely’s family says whatever he said didn’t justify what Penny did.