A woman has died after being set on fire Sunday while sleeping on a subway train in Brooklyn, and a person of interest is in custody, according to police officials.
According to the NYPD, a man lit the woman on fire while she was sleeping aboard a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station at around 7:30 a.m. Sunday.
“As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked up to the victim, who was in a seated position at the end of a subway car. The suspect used what we believe to be a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Tisch said officers who were on patrol at the station investigated after they saw and smelled the smoke. She said the officers and an MTA employee used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames.
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta said the victim has not been identified. Officials also did not identify the person of interest.
According to Gulotta, the suspect and victim did not interact with each other prior to the incident. He said he does not believe they knew each other.
Gulotta said the person of interest was arrested on an F train that was stopped at Herald Square. Officials said the arrest was made because three high school students called police after recognizing the suspect from pictures the NYPD had released.
Police also said the fact that cameras are installed in every single car of every single subway train played an important role in the apprehension.
The incident also marked the second fatality on a New York subway Sunday.
At 12:35 a.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 multiple slashes throughout his body. The older man was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital while the younger man was in stable condition, police said.