Daniel Penny sat down with Judge Jeanine Pirro for a powerful first interview since jurors found him not guilty in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely.

NEW YORK (AP) — After being acquitted of homicide, the military veteran who choked a volatile, mentally ill man on a New York subway told an interviewer he put himself in a “very vulnerable position” but felt compelled to act.

Daniel Penny, a Marine veteran at the center of a New York City subway killing trial, spoke out for the first time after a jury found him not guilty, noting that at the time of the incident he was in “a very vulnerable position.