New York governor criticized for subway safety claim after woman burns to death on train

New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, is facing political heat for saying she has made New York City’s subways safer on the same day a woman was set on fire and burned to death on a train.

In an X post on Sunday, Hochul claimed that subway crime has decreased since she deployed the national guard to help address it.

“In March, I took action to make our subways safer for the millions of people who take the trains each day,” Hochul’s post read. “Since deploying the [national guard] to support [New York police] and [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] safety efforts and adding cameras to all subway cars, crime is going down, and ridership is going up.”

That followed a press conference last week during which the governor said subway crime was down 42% since January 2021 and discussed plans to send 750 national guard members into the subways to help curb holiday crime.

But Hochul’s post came eight hours after a man allegedly set a homeless woman – an apparent stranger to him – on fire and watched her burn to death on an F train in Brooklyn.

The attack took place at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station at about 7.30am on Sunday, according to the New York police department. Police said the man threw a lighter on the woman, and she became engulfed in flames in seconds.

A suspect in the case, who has since been arrested, allegedly sat on a subway bench and watched the woman burn to death before getting up to fan the flames.

Jessica Tisch, police commissioner, said at a Sunday evening press conference that surveillance footage indicated the victim and her assailant were both riding the train early that morning.

As the train pulled into the station, the assailant walked up to the woman, who may have been sleeping and used what authorities believe was a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing – “which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds”, Tisch said.

“Unbeknownst to the officers who responded, the suspect had stayed on the scene and was seated on a bench on the platform just outside the train car, and the body-worn cameras on the responding officers produced a very clear detailed look at the killer,” Tisch said.

Police body camera and surveillance images were key to apprehending the suspect, investigators said. And authorities credited three high-school-age New Yorkers who recognized the suspect and called the police.

“Our officers … stopped that train in Herald Square and were able to keep the doors closed, walk the train and place this very dangerous individual in custody,” the police chief of transit, Joseph Gulotta, said.

The suspect was found with a lighter in his pocket, the commissioner said.

Police sources identified a person of interest in the case to Fox News Digital as 33-year-old Sebastin Zapeta, saying he first entered the US from Guatemala in 2018, during Donald Trump’s first presidency.

A video circulating on social media appeared to show the suspect in Sunday’s subway killing on a train at some point saying in Spanish: “I drink my beer and live what I am – as long as I don’t bother anyone, I don’t bother anyone. Why do fucking people have problems with me? That’s the problem. I don’t give a fuck.”

The timing of Hochul’s tweets over subway safety drew criticism, with many users of the social platform responding with video clips of Sunday’s murder.

Melissa DeRosa, who served under former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, said the woman who was murdered was not the only person to have died on the subway system on Sunday.

“2 people were murdered in the subway today,” DeRosa wrote. “The governor of the state of ny is a tourist who can’t even bother to read a newspaper while she’s in town.”

The second case to which DeRosa referred unfolded hours before – when one man was stabbed to death and another seriously injured on a 7 train in Queens.

As of November, there had been nine homicides reported on the subway in 2024, compared to five over the same period in 2023, according to police data.

But subway crime is likely to become a dominant issue as both Hochul and the New York City mayor, Eric Adams – who is facing federal bribery charges – prepare for re-election campaigns.

Earlier in December, a Manhattan jury acquitted the former marine Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who had been threatening subway train passengers when Penny grabbed him from behind and restrained him in a chokehold for several minutes.