New Yorkers have been up in arms Monday someday after an unlawful Guatemalan immigrant allegedly burned a sleeping straphanger to demise aboard a Brooklyn subway practice — whereas bystanders did nothing.
Horrifying video footage of the incident reveals at the very least three gawkers — one among them seen filming the stunning deadly blaze on his cellphone — and an NYPD cop standing outdoors the subway automobile as flames engulfed the unidentified sufferer after the Sunday morning assault.
“Nobody came to her aid,” stated Guardian Angels founder and group activist Curtis Sliwa. “There’s little doubt that folks don’t wish to become involved. It’s the Daniel Penny issue. It’s frozen individuals. They’re saying to themselves: ‘I don’t wish to get jammed up like Penny.
“People should have been running over to the woman on fire. They did nothing. They said nothing,” Sliwa stated, calling the reluctance of bystanders to intervene “the Daniel Penny effect.”
Penny, a 26-year-old ex-Marine, was charged with homicide final yr for fatally choking vagrant Jordan Neely after Neely aggressively confronted frightened passengers on a Manhattan subway automobile.
Penny was acquitted of criminally negligent murder costs earlier this month.
However in line with some observers, his authorized ordeal is giving would-be subway good Samaritans pause.
“People are reticent about getting in the middle of criminal activity,” state Conservative Celebration Chairman Gerard Kassar, a Brooklyn resident, informed The Submit Monday. “There are a whole lot of New York Metropolis residents who assume twice about performing as a result of they don’t assume they’ve the assist of our Democratic elected officers. They’re cautious of revolving door justice.
“This murder never should have happened in the first place,” he stated.
In the meantime, the top of the state Senate committee that oversees the MTA stated Monday he desires solutions from the transit company over shortcomings uncovered by the incident.
“We’re asking for a breakdown of what happened, how it happened and why it took so long [to make an arrest],” state Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-Queens), who chairs the committee, informed The Submit Monday.
“Because of the actions of previous administrations, it’s a mess out there,” Comrie stated. “There are too many [mentally ill] people who should be in facilities who are out in the streets. Some of these people need to be restricted in their movements.”
The lawmaker spoke someday after a migrant, recognized by federal immigration officers as 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, was charged after the grisly incident on a Coney Island subway practice.
Disturbing video captured a person recognized as Zapeta-Calil calmly sitting on a bench on the station whereas the girl burned. He left the scene however cops caught up with him later when he stopped off a subway practice on the thirty fourth Road-Herald Sq. station in Manhattan.
Sources stated costs are pending, with Brooklyn prosecutors awaiting the outcomes of an post-mortem — which is difficult by the scorched situation of the victims’ physique — to find out the reason for demise.
However the incident has raised a number of questions, together with why it took cops so lengthy to get to the burning girl, why Zapeta-Calil was allowed to go away the scene after cops arrived and why required hearth extinguishers on the subway automobile weren’t put to make use of, sources stated.
One former state pol took goal at Gov. Kathy Hochul, elevating issues over the state-run transit company.
“We all witnessed the horrible tragedy on the F train,” former Brooklyn state Assemblyman Dov Hikind stated on X. “I’m calling on Gov. Hochul, I’m begging and pleading with you to resign now.
“This job is just beyond you. Unfortunately in New York there is no recall, so I’m asking you to do the right thing,” Hikind stated. “You took footage the day earlier than the tragedy telling Big apple how protected the subways have been. How pathetic.
“You may mean well, but being governor is just not for you. Get out of the way.”
