By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Police arrested a person they mentioned set a lady on fireplace whereas she gave the impression to be asleep on a New York Metropolis subway practice on Sunday morning, killing her.
The girl, who has not been recognized, sat motionlessly aboard a stationary F practice on the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station in Brooklyn at about 7:30 a.m. (1230 GMT) when an unknown man calmly approached her and used a lighter to set her garments on fireplace, the New York Police Division mentioned. Police mentioned there was no interplay earlier than the assault and they didn’t imagine the 2 folks knew one another.
The person obtained off the automotive as law enforcement officials on patrol within the station rushed to the blaze.
“What they saw was a person standing inside the train car fully engulfed in flames,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch mentioned at a press convention.
Cellphone video revealed on social media by a horrified onlooker confirmed a person sat on a bench on the platform a couple of steps away from the burning lady, wearing a grey hoodie that resembles that worn by the suspect arrested afterward Sunday.
Requested whether or not the person watching from the bench was the attacker, police mentioned that responding officers had no cause to assume he was a suspect after they rushed to the girl’s help.
The officers used fireplace extinguishers to place out the hearth and the girl was pronounced lifeless on the scene by emergency responders, police mentioned.
Police arrested a suspect, who has not been publicly recognized, as he rode the subway afterward Sunday.
Police mentioned they had been nonetheless investigating the sufferer’s id and the explanation for the assault.
About 4 million journeys are taken every weekday on the town’s subway, the place violent crime is comparatively uncommon. As of November, there had been 9 homicides reported on the subway in 2024, in comparison with 5 in the identical interval in 2023, in keeping with police knowledge.
Earlier this month, a jury acquitted Daniel Penny of criminally negligent murder within the loss of life of Jordan Neely, a homeless former Michael Jackson impersonator, on the town’s subway. Neely had been shouting angrily at passengers on a subway practice when Penny grabbed him from behind and restrained him in a chokehold for a number of minutes.