New York City police announced Sunday that they have detained a “person of interest” in the early-morning death of a woman who they believe may have slept on a stationary subway train before a man she did not know intentionally set it on fire. .
Transit police arrested the suspect after receiving reports from three high school students who knew the man. They saw images taken from surveillance and police body cam video of the suspect and widely distributed by police. “New Yorkers have come again,” said New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who called the case “one of the most depraved crimes one person can commit against another human being.”
Tisch said the suspect and the woman, who has not been identified, were both riding a subway train at the end of the line in Brooklyn around 7:30 a.m.
After the train stopped, surveillance video from a subway car showed the man “calmly” walking over to the victim, who was sitting and possibly sleeping, and setting fire to what appeared to be a lighter on her clothes. The woman’s clothing was then “completely engulfed in seconds,” Tisch said. Police do not believe the two knew each other.
Officers on routine patrol at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station smelled smoke and discovered a woman standing in the middle of a subway car on fire. After extinguishing the fire, emergency medical personnel declared the woman dead on the spot.
Unbeknownst to authorities, the suspect remained at the scene and sat on a bench on the subway platform just outside the train car, Tisch said. Body cameras worn by officers captured a “very clear, detailed view” of the suspect, and those images were broadcast publicly.
After later receiving a 911 call from the teen, other transit officers identified the man on another subway train and radioed to another station, where more officers searched each car and eventually arrested him without incident. The man had a lighter in his pocket, Tisch said. The case marked the second death on the New York subway on Sunday.
At 12:35 p.m., police responded to an emergency call for an assault in progress at the 61st Street-Woodside station in Queens and found a 37-year-old man with a stab wound to his torso and a 26-year-old man. With many slashes all over the body. The elder was declared brought dead at a nearby hospital, while the younger is in a stable condition, police said.
The investigation was ongoing. New York Gov. Cathy Hochul this year sent members of the New York National Guard into the city’s subway system to help police conduct random searches of riders’ bags for weapons. Hochul recently hired more members to help with patrols during the holiday season.
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