Bystanders accused of doing nothing as man set woman on fire in Brooklyn
Many have alleged that bystanders simply looked on and did nothing as an illegal Guatemalan immigrant set a sleeping straphanger on fire aboard a Brooklyn subway train. Footage of the incident shows at least three people looking on, with one of them even filming the fire. An NYPD cop stood outside the subway car as flames engulfed the victim on Sunday morning, December 22.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, was later arrested. It has been reported that he snuck back into the US after being deported. He has been charged with first- and second-degree murder, and arson, New York Post reported.
‘It’s the Daniel Penny factor’
“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 added.
Penny was accused of choking vagrant Jordan Neely to death after Neely aggressively confronted frightened passengers on a Manhattan subway car. The 26-year-old ex-Marine was charged with murder last year, and then acquitted of criminally negligent homicide charges earlier this month.
However, some people have observed that Penny’s legal troubles are giving potential good Samaritans pause. “People are reticent about getting in the middle of criminal activity,” state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar, a Brooklyn resident, told New York Post. “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 added.
The head of the state Senate committee that oversees the MTA is now seeking answers from the transit agency over certain shortcomings the recent incident has exposed. “We’re asking for a breakdown of what happened, how it happened and why it took so long [to make an arrest],” said state Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-Queens), who chairs the committee.
“Because of the actions of previous administrations, it’s a mess out there,” Comrie added. “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.”
Several videos have been doing the rounds following the incident. One shows NYPD officers swarming a Manhattan subway train to apprehend the suspect. A previous video showed Zapeta-Calil calmly watching the woman he set on fire burn to death.
