A lawyer for Daniel Penny told Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro in an interview on Thursday that accusations of racial bias against the former Marine were utterly “baseless.”

Penny pled not guilty to one count of second-degree manslaughter and one count of negligent homicide on Tuesday after he was accused of killing Jordan Neely, a homeless man with a violent criminal record, on a Manhattan subway train on May 1.

Some in the media seemed to turn the incident into a racial issue because Penny was white and Neely black. Tom Kenniff, a lawyer representing Penny, told Shapiro on his Thursday podcast that it was nothing other than “reckless, vitriolic speculation” to turn the incident on the subway into a racial incident, saying that Penny “doesn’t have any racial animus.”

Kenniff told Shapiro that he had no doubt that Penny would be exonerated. Last month, Penny placed Neely in a chokehold on the floor of a Manhattan subway car to subdue him after witnesses said Neely was making threatening comments toward passengers on board the vehicle.

“We have absolutely no doubt that ultimately our client will be exonerated. But, you know, the law recognizes and we as a people should recognize that the mere act of being the subject of a criminal prosecution, regardless of how it turns out, is a life-altering, traumatizing thing for anyone,” he said.

Neely reportedly said he was ready to go to jail for the rest of his life and was ready to die.

“Anyone who knows anything about the New York criminal justice system knows that there is only one way that one could go to prison for the rest of their life, and that’s to take another life,” Kenniff told The Daily Wire co-founder. “So that’s the environment that my client was in, and this case is all about, you know, what he reasonably perceived and what a person in his situation would have reasonably perceived.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP

Penny was indicted on June 14 after New York officials promised to investigate the incident. The indictment was praised by attorneys for Neely’s family.

A GiveSendGo campaign set up to pay Penny’s legal expenses has already raised more than $2 million. Penny’s next court appearance is set for September 25.

Speaking to the Wisconsin state Senate about the proposed state budget, a Democratic state senator from Milwaukee slammed suburbanites, saying, “F*** the suburbs.”

State Senator LaTonya Johnson began her speech by speaking of the children who had been killed in her community by gun violence, then segued to blaming some of the violence on suburbanites who brought guns into the city.

“In the city of Milwaukee in 2021, gun thefts from vehicles alone — we’re talking about your Park N’ Rides, we’re talking about the malls, we’re talking about gun thefts from people who are living comfortably in the suburbs and deciding to bring their guns into Milwaukee because they want to be safe but then realizing that they can’t take them into certain places,” she stated. “841 guns that were stolen from vehicles. In 2022, 737 guns that were stolen from cars. These are guns that are taken, that are used on the streets in communities like mine.”

Johnson spoke later about the 2% sales tax for the city of Milwaukee that was passed this week:

For Milwaukee, the sales tax came with some strings attached. And one of those strings attached came with having to hire additional fire and police. Not necessarily to help protect the individuals who live in Milwaukee … as a condition of the 2% sales tax, we had to hire additional police.

“Now that wasn’t an issue for me,” she continued. “Five of the busiest fire stations in Milwaukee are located in my district; three of the busiest fire stations in Milwaukee are located in my district.”

Noting that the bulk of 911 calls in Milwaukee came from her district, she added, “So those additional fire and police will benefit my district. So I wasn’t upset about that. But those individuals weren’t requested for my district.”

She said WisconsinEye had reported that the additional officers were needed because the crime was spilling out into the suburbs.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP

“And Lord forbid that the crime goes from the inner city of Milwaukee into the suburbs,” she declared. “Let’s just be clear about that.”

As Johnson neared the end of her speech, she said, “It would be nice sometimes, when some of these policies are made, if some of the people that were directly impacted were being brought to the table. And it would be nice sometimes, if when we are talking about these issues, that we think about the conversations that we’re having, because to say that these additional police are needed – what about these babies who are being lost right in their own cities who are born into poverty and then who die before they even get an opportunity to change what they were even born into? What about those moms who have to say goodbye to their kids forever simply because of their zip codes?”

“F*** the suburbs, because they don’t know a god-d*** thing about how life is in the city,” she concluded.

“Hate for the suburbs or anyone or any place in Wisconsin has no home here. Resign Sen. LaTonya Johnson, Wisconsin doesn’t have the time for your hate and lack of civility,” an editorial writer snapped in the Wisconsin Law Journal.