Man Arrested for Setting Woman on Fire Inside N.Y.C. Subway Car

A suspect has been arrested for allegedly killing a woman after setting her alight on a subway train in New York City.

The unidentified victim was traveling towards Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn when a man set her clothes on fire with a lighter at around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 22, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch reported in a news conference. 

According to the commissioner, the suspect “calmly walked up to the victim” who was in a seated position at the end of the train car. He then ignited her clothing and she was “fully engulfed in a matter of seconds.” 

Officers on patrol on an upper level of the station “saw smoke” and rushed to the train, using a fire extinguisher to put out the flames. Unfortunately, the victim was pronounced dead on the scene, Tisch revealed. Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chief Security Officer Michael Kemper called it a “brutal, senseless homicide,” per the conference.

Surveillance footage from inside the subway car showed the assailant approaching the woman without saying a word and igniting the blanket she was wrapped in. The suspect then sat on a bench and watched the woman burn, CNN and NBC News reported. New York City Mayor Eric Adams called the act “depraved” in a statement on X.

Police were initially unaware that the suspect had remained at the scene Tisch said in the news conference. 

However, their Bodycam footage provided a detailed profile of the suspect and images of the man in question were circulated. Three high schoolers subsequently identified him and called 911, Tisch shared.

Transit officers spotted the man riding on another train and he was arrested eight hours after the attack with charges pending, the New York Police Department confirmed, per CNN and NBC News. No other passengers were injured in the attack, according to the outlets. 

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams wrote on X (Formerly Twitter), “This type of depraved behavior has no place in our subways and we are committed to working hard to ensure there is swift justice for all victims of violent crime.”

PEOPLE has reached out to the NYPD for further comment but did not immediately hear back.