After Weekend UES Subway Protest, Police Seek Six

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A protest on Saturday that took over an Upper East Side subway station could result in criminal trespass charges, police say.

Officials released a photo of six people they say jumped to the train tracks and blocked a downtown Q train at the 63rd-Lexington Ave. station — and risked electrocution by the ultra deadly third rail — during a protest demanding justice for Jordan Neely on Saturday evening.

Neely was choked to death by a stranger — identified as Long Island resident and former Marine Jordan Penny — on a F train last week.

Police said they arrested 13 people during the protests, footage of which show protesters filling the train platform and dozens of people in the train tracks as the headlights of a Q train can be seen just a few yards away.

One video shows an officer begging a man to step off off the guard plate above the surely still electrified third rail, which eventually had its power cut.

The protests ultimately halted train traffic for about an hour, according to the MTA, who said that service began again around 7 p.m.

The killing has sparked an intense discussion about both how the city is dealing with a homelessness crisis, a mental health crisis and the role of bystander intervention.

Penny reportedly held Neely in a blood chokehold for over 15 minutes as bystanders told him the homeless 30-year-old in his grips had surely turned into a corpse.

Police held Penny briefly but later released him without charges. The DA's office told Patch last week that they were still looking into potential charges and did not reply to a message sent Monday morning.

Penny's lawyer, a former candidate opposite current Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said last week that their client acted in defense and that Penny “never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death.”

Shortly after the protests ended, the uptown and downtown platform at the normally tidy Upper East Side station carried little signs of a massive protest — aside from a literal sign with the word "lynched" written on it, resting on the floor against an on-platform NYPD booth.