A man has been arrested in New York in relation to the death of a woman who was set on fire on a subway train in Brooklyn.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch explained that the woman was on a stationary train to Brooklyn when a man approached her and used a lighter to ignite her clothing. The woman died at the scene. The suspect was arrested after a group of high school students recognised him on the subway and tipped off the police.
The woman, whose identity has not been released, was in a subway carriage at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn at about 07:30 local time (12:30 GMT) when a man came up to her, police said.
There was no interaction before the attack, and police believe the two were strangers. The man left the train as officers patrolling the station responded to the fire.
Tisch said, “Officers were on patrol on an upper level of that station, smelled and saw smoke and went to investigate.
“What they saw was a person standing inside the train car fully engulfed in flames.
“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.”
Responding officers got a “very clear, detailed” description of the man, and the New York Police Department (NYPD) distributed images of him, she mentioned. Authorities are still working to identify the victim and determine the motive behind the attack.
The man was located when officers boarded the train and walked through the subway carriages. He was arrested at Herald Square station, near the Empire State Building in Manhattan. The man was found with a lighter in his pocket, according to the police commissioner.
The suspect, who has not been publicly identified, emigrated from Guatemala to the US in 2018, said NYPD’s Joseph Gulotta. Gulotta mentioned that detectives are still trying to determine whether the victim was asleep when she was set on fire.
Frances Ibiefo
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