A 45-year-old man was set on fire in the middle of Times Square overnight on Sunday, according to police, three months after a woman was killed on a subway car in an arson attack.
Footage from the scene captured the moments the man, shirtless and severely burned, was rushed by authorities into an ambulance after the flames were extinguished.
Police say the 45-year-old was found on fire around 4am and was taken to a nearby hospital in stable condition. His assailant allegedly fled the scene and is being sought by authorities. They were unable to say if the attack was random or targeted.
It was later reported that the man had been doused with accelerant from a Patron tequila bottle and lit on fire, according to crime scene investigators. The victim then ran 100ft west while on fire before someone jumped out of a car and doused him with a powder fire extinguisher, fire marshals told the New York Post.
A Brooklyn woman told the outlet that Times Square gets “pretty scary” early in the morning. “Yeah it’s pretty scary before 8 or 9am,” said the woman, Anne Lee, 26. “There are no cops on these blocks at all. These side streets. They’re really only on the avenues and they only give directions to tourists.”
Street violence is likely to be a dominant issue of New York’s mayoral elections this year, with one contender, the former state governor Andrew Cuomo, calling the city “out of control” and vowing to add 5,000 additional officers.
The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, has said the issue is not a shortage of police, but bail reforms signed into law by the former governor.
Statistics show crime in the city is trending lower.
“Stop saying our city is in ‘chaos and crisis’! It is not,” Adams said last week.
But Sunday’s arson attack comes three months after a woman was fatally set on fire in a subway car, horrifying New Yorkers and renewing a debate over city safety. The victim was later identified as 57-year-old Debrina Kawam.
The man accused of lighting her on fire, the Guatemalan migrant worker Sebastian Zapeta, was taken into custody hours after the incident and charged with murder and arson.
Police said the suspect had not left the scene as Kawam burned to death and was found with a lighter in his pocket. “Lighting another human being on fire and watching them burn alive reflects a level of evil that cannot be tolerated,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.
