Police Say a Man Set a Woman on Fire on the Subway

Police say a woman was killed on the F train on Sunday morning after a man lit her clothes on fire, then watched from a bench on the platform as she burned to death, the New York Times reports.

According to the Times, the suspect — who has since been taken into custody — calmly approached a motionless and possibly sleeping woman on a stationary F train at the Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue Station around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday. CNN reports that surveillance footage from the subway car showed the suspect lighting the blanket the woman wore on fire, engulfing her in flames. Officers who had been patrolling the station’s upper level went downstairs after they saw and smelled smoke. Along with an MTA worker, they extinguished the fire as the suspect sat on a bench just opposite the subway car and watched his victim burn. “Unbeknownst to the officers who responded, the suspect had stayed on the scene and was seated on a bench on the platform just outside the train car,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference addressing the attack.

Cameras on the subway car and the officers’ body cameras captured images of the suspect, which were quickly disseminated online. Roughly eight hours after the attack, three high-school students called police after they spotted the suspect on the F train in Brooklyn. The train was stopped at Herald Square, where officers took the suspect into custody and discovered a lighter in his pocket.

Police have not publicly identified the suspect, who they say emigrated from Guatemala to the United States in 2018. Authorities do not believe he and the woman — who has also not been identified — knew each other prior to the attack.

As of Monday morning, a police spokesperson told CNN the suspect is still in custody with charges pending.

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