A decade-long effort to broaden New York’s hate crime laws to include homeless people as a protected class is gaining momentum after a Marine veteran was charged with killing a homeless man on the subway who was threatening passengers.

“It becomes evident every so often when a homeless person is attacked, sometimes fatally by people out there, and so I thought it was important that homelessness be protected under state law,” the assembly member sponsoring the Homeless Protection Act, Linda Rosenthal, tells the Sun. 

She’s been sponsoring the legislation since 2013 but is getting new sponsors and homeless advocacy groups are increasing their outreach efforts. 

“If our State Legislature were to pass this legislation, New York would join a list of states and localities including Florida, Maine, Maryland, Rhode Island, Utah, and Washington, D.C. to hold this protection,” a campaign supporting the legislation writes. “Over the last 25 years there have been 73 acts of violence against people experiencing homelessness documented in New York, all of which could be classified as a hate crime.” 

A renewed push for the legislation is unfolding ahead of a trial in October of a Marine veteran, Daniel Penny, who is accused of choking a Black homeless man and Michael Jackson impersonator, Jordan Neely, to death on the New York subway last year.

Mr. Penny faces up to 15 years in prison and has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, claiming that he did not intend to cause Neely’s death and that the chokehold was a way of protecting himself and other passengers who felt threatened by Neely’s erratic behavior. 

The death sparked heated debate, as Mr. Penny was dubbed everything from a “good Samaritan” to a “racist” to a “murderer.” 

Neely’s death has “highlighted the importance” of the Homeless Protection Act, Ms. Rosenthal says.

“It makes it a more serious offense. It recognizes that homelessness is something a lot of people contend with and it’s often really not their fault. We know that many people who become homeless couldn’t pay their medical bills, or were unemployed and the rent went up and they couldn’t pay it,” she says, adding that some people suffer from mental illness as well. The bill aims to recognize homeless people and acknowledge that they are a class that needs special protection, she adds. 

“If someone’s attacking a homeless person, they’d be prosecuted as whatever act of violence that was, but adding a hate crime to it could up the penalty,” she says. The legislation would “recognize that it’s not just some random attack on someone, it’s an attack on someone who is homeless,” she says, adding that “nobody really wants to be homeless.” 

Under the legislation, people engage in a hate crime when they commit offenses where they “intentionally select” the victim of the crime based on beliefs or perceptions about that person’s status of being homeless. 

When asked how intentional bias would be proven, Ms. Rosenthal responds: “It’s the same methodology police use when they investigate a hate crime of somebody who’s Jewish or somebody who’s Muslim or somebody who’s LGBT — they investigate to determine if the crime meets those requirements to be classified as a hate crime.” 

Asked how the law would apply to cases of self defense, she says not every case would be determined as a hate crime: “That’s something law enforcement has to determine.” 

One of Mr. Penny’s lawyers, Thomas Kenniff, rejects the case being used in any pushes for the hate crime legislation, pointing out that the bill targets intent-based crimes only. 

“I think it’s a bit counterintuitive since my client is not charged with any intent-based offenses and hate crimes involve people that are involved in intent-based crimes — in other words, people who intentionally harm others and are motivated by the person’s identity. In this case, my client is charged with reckless and negligent homicide,” Mr. Kenniff tells the Sun. “I don’t see how anyone would be able to argue that someone who is not even accused of acting intentionally did so based on an individual’s status in a protected class. It just wouldn’t fit.”

Mr. Penny has denied that Neely’s race played any role in his decision to restrain him and place him in a chokehold. “I didn’t see a Black man threatening passengers, I saw a man threatening passengers, a lot of whom were people of color,” Mr. Penny said last year.

“I think that the public interests and the safety of the public would be best served if our legislature and those that are charged with prosecuting crimes would work on enforcing the laws we currently have on the books instead of trying to invent new ones,” Mr. Kenniff says.