By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-23 23:22:48 | Updated at 2024-12-24 05:20:00
6 hours ago
New Yorkers were up in arms Monday one day after an illegal Guatemalan immigrant allegedly burned a sleeping straphanger to death aboard a Brooklyn subway train — while bystanders did nothing.
Horrifying video footage of the incident shows at least three gawkers — one of them seen filming the shocking fatal blaze on his phone — and an NYPD cop standing outside the subway car as flames engulfed the unidentified victim after the Sunday morning attack.
“Nobody came to her aid,” said Guardian Angels founder and community activist Curtis Sliwa. “There’s no doubt that people don’t want to get involved. It’s the Daniel Penny factor. It’s frozen people. They’re saying to themselves: ‘I don’t want to get jammed up like Penny.
“People should have been running over to the woman on fire. They did nothing. They said nothing,” Sliwa said, calling the reluctance of bystanders to intervene “the Daniel Penny effect.”
Penny, a 26-year-old ex-Marine, was charged with murder last year for fatally choking vagrant Jordan Neely after Neely aggressively confronted frightened passengers on a Manhattan subway car.
Penny was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide charges earlier this month.
But according to some observers, his legal ordeal is giving would-be subway good Samaritans pause.
“People are reticent about getting in the middle of criminal activity,” state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar, a Brooklyn resident, told The Post Monday. “There are a lot of New York City residents who think twice about acting because they don’t think they have the support of our Democratic elected officials. They are wary of revolving door justice.
“This murder never should have happened in the first place,” he said.
Meanwhile, the head of the state Senate committee that oversees the MTA said Monday he wants answers from the transit agency over shortcomings exposed 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, told The Post Monday.
“Because of the actions of previous administrations, it’s a mess out there,” Comrie said. “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 one day after a migrant, identified by federal immigration officials as 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, was charged after the grisly incident on a Coney Island subway train.
Disturbing video captured a man identified as Zapeta-Calil calmly sitting on a bench at the station while the woman burned. He left the scene but cops caught up with him later when he stopped off a subway train at the 34th Street-Herald Square station in Manhattan.
Sources said charges are pending, with Brooklyn prosecutors awaiting the results of an autopsy — which is complicated by the scorched condition of the victims’ body — to determine the cause of death.
But the incident has raised several questions, including why it took cops so long to get to the burning woman, why Zapeta-Calil was allowed to leave the scene after cops arrived and why required fire extinguishers on the subway car weren’t put to use, sources said.
One former state pol took aim at Gov. Kathy Hochul, raising concerns over the state-run transit agency.
“We all witnessed the horrible tragedy on the F train,” former Brooklyn state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said on X. “I am 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 said. “You took pictures the day before the tragedy telling New york how safe the subways were. How pathetic.
“You may mean well, but being governor is just not for you. Get out of the way.”
