Father of subway chokehold victim Jordan Neely demands answers and an arrest

The frustrated father of subway chokehold victim Jordan Neely demanded answers and an arrest in his son’s shocking death as authorities again remained mute Friday about criminal charges in the lethal confrontation.

“I just want something to be done,” dad Andre Zachery, 59, told the Daily News. “Obviously he was calling for help ... He wasn’t out to hurt nobody. He was a good kid and a good man too. Something has to be done.”

Zachery was upset by the lack of criminal charges in Monday’s encounter captured on video by a straphanger, with Neely placed in a headlock by Marine veteran Daniel Penny aboard the northbound F train in lower Manhattan.

The devastated dad said it wasn’t until Thursday that the city officially told him of his son’s death.

“That man, he’s still walking around right now,” said Zachery of Penny. “My son didn’t deserve to die because he needed help.”

In a statement late Friday, Penny’s lawyers said he acted with other passengers “to protect themselves” and never intended to harm Neely. The statement expressed “condolences to those close to Mr. Neely,” and acknowledged his mental illness.

New details emerged Friday about the chaotic scene on the northbound F train, with a transit source telling The News that two terrified straphangers inaccurately reported to the train operator that the unarmed Neely was carrying a weapon.

One female rider said a man in the second car had a gun and gestured to her waistband, the operator told detectives. And a male passenger informed the operator that the man had a gun or a knife. Other passengers had already restrained the 30-year-old Neely in the same car.

An internal MTA report indicated the train operator reported “an unruly passenger armed with a gun and knife being subdued by passengers in car #9774″ and requested NYPD assistance from the MTA’s Rail Control Center at 2:25 p.m.

“They were scared,” the train operator reportedly told police of the rattled riders.

A police source said toxicology tests on Neely were incomplete, and his death was ruled a homicide by the city medical examiner.

The passing of the homeless man and one-time Michael Jackson impersonator sparked city protests and calls for criminal charges against Penny for applying the deadly hold after grabbing Neely on the train.

The former Marine, who hired a lawyer, has yet to offer his version about what took place. The video showed Penny beneath Neely as a second man restrained the victim’s hands.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and NYPD detectives were still considering the next legal step in the shocking death before stunned subway riders in the Broadway-Lafayette station.

The video captured Neely initially struggling, with Penny’s left arm wrapped around his neck, before all movement ceased. He was pronounced dead a short time later at Lenox Hill Hospital.

A police source offered details on Neely’s mental health woes, recounting how he told cops on different occasions that he was schizophrenic, off his medications, or feeling suicidal.

Neely, who had a rap sheet of 42 arrests, was also involved in two prior incidents with overtones of the subway incident: One where he threatened passers-by while drunk on the street in Washington Heights, the second where he frightened straphangers near the 207th St. station in Inwood, the source said.

The victim’s godfather Barry Kniebs, 64, suggested the Marine was way out of bounds when he laid hands on Neely.

“This individual seems like he’s a vigilante,” said Kniebs. “And them days are over. However they want to justify it, to me it seemed like it was wrong.”