Some of the most prominent progressive groups in New York, and America, lambasted the verdict and fretted that it would put more Black people at risk.

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The national NAACP said on Monday that the verdict had “given license for vigilante justice to be waged on the Black community without consequence.” The state Working Families Party, which has given its ballot line to most of the New York Democratic delegation, said that “Eric Adams and his administration failed to call Neely’s death what it was: a modern-day lynching.” And Jumaane Williams, the city Public Advocate elected with WFP support, said “the system was okay with violence against marginalized people” like Neely, and that the tragedy would not have happened had the two men’s races been reversed.

While Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett shared the sentiments of activists, calling the verdict a “miscarriage of justice,” most New York Democrats who talked to Semafor on Tuesday took another view.

“I think everyone who does not sit in a courtroom for an entire trial should be careful about reaching judgments or conclusions about any given case,” said Brooklyn Rep. Dan Goldman, who had previously called Neely’s death a “heartbreaking” tragedy. “What something may look like on a video may ultimately be significantly changed by the law or the evidence.”

Queens Rep. Grace Meng called the Penny case “sad,” and “obviously, one that shouldn’t have happened.” Neely had bounced in and out of the city’s criminal justice and mental health systems before the confrontation with Penny, and “in New York and around the country, we need to invest more in mental health resources. The victim should never have been in that situation.”

But Meng disagreed with the “lynching” characterization from New York WFP. “That would not be my take,” she said. Rep. Tom Suozzi, whose district covers a small part of Queens and a larger part of Long Island, said he supported the jury’s decision.

“I think it’s good practice for Democrats and Republicans to follow the jury system we’ve set up in our country,” he said. “That’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”

The Democrats’ hard thinking about what went wrong for them this year is happening in public and in private, in what they say and what they choose not to.

It’s significant that just one New York Democrat, who is already heading for the exits, put the Penny verdict in the larger context of racial justice movements and police abuse.

In 2020, Democrats often walked in step – and, just once, in kente cloth – with the Black Lives Matter movement. They didn’t do so this week, and that says something about how they are thinking about their image after 2024 election losses. New York City and its suburbs led the way on that.