Dramatic video shows NYPD officers storming a crowded Manhattan subway to drag away the Guatemalan migrant accused of setting a sleeping subway passenger on fire and watching her burn.
Officers were waiting for the suspect on the platform of the 34th Street-Herald Square station when they rushed him into the crowded Subway car, a video shared on Instagram shows.
Two officers are pushed past commuters, charging at the alleged killer – who was sitting with his head down and possibly even sleeping.
One of the officers then puts his arm around the suspect and forces him to the ground as more officers rush to help.
About five officers detain the Guatemalan native and handcuff him while his face is pressed against the plastic subway seat.
Concerned and confused straphangers watch and step back as police shout at them to get off the train.
Riders in the already crowded subway car are seen struggling to escape the chaos before the video ends.
According to Tisch and NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta, three high school students had called police to say they had seen the man at the Jay and York Street station on the F line.
Police were called ahead, stopped the train at Herald Square and went from car to car until they found and arrested the suspect.
“Our officers in District Two stopped that train at Herald Square and were able to hold the doors closed, walk through the train and take this very dangerous individual into custody,” Gulotta said.
The suspect had a lighter in his pocket when he was arrested, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
The 33-year-old suspect — whose name has yet to be released pending arraignment — is accused of setting fire to a sleeping subway passenger on an idling F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn around 7:30 a.m. Sunday . am
“As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked up to the victim, who was in a sitting position at the end of a subway car… and used what we believe was a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which was completely was engulfed within seconds,” Tisch said.
Gruesome video obtained by The Post showed the suspect calmly watching as the flames consumed the unidentified woman, who stood in the open door of the subway.
Patrolling officers eventually reached the smoldering victim and extinguished the fire. The victim died on the spot.
“Unbeknownst to the responding officers, the suspect had remained at the scene and was sitting on a bench on the platform just outside the train car,” Tisch said.
“The responding officers’ body-worn cameras provided a very clear, detailed image of the killer.”
Around 1 p.m., authorities carried a body bag containing the woman’s corpse from the train and placed it on a stretcher to a medical examiner’s van.
The woman has not yet been identified.
Officials said the alleged killer came to the U.S. from Guatemala in 2018. Border Patrol agents detained him in Arizona in June of that year, sources said.
His legal status was not immediately clear.
