The man accused of burning a woman to death on a subway train in Brooklyn over the weekend was identified by federal immigration officials Monday as a 33-year-old from Guatemala who was in the United States illegally.
The man, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, first entered the country in 2018, was deported days later and returned to the U.S. sometime afterward, Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said in a statement. Mr. Zapeta-Calil was arrested on Sunday shortly after the attack and was charged on Monday with first-degree murder and arson, authorities said.
His address was a homeless shelter for men with substance abuse problems in East New York, Brooklyn.
The seemingly random attack, some of which was captured on video, horrified public officials and New Yorkers.
The police said that Mr. Zapeta-Calil did not appear to know the woman or have any interaction with her before the attack. When he got on the F train in Queens, the woman, who has not yet been identified and who appeared to be homeless, was already on it, and they rode on the same train for over an hour until the train reached its terminus in Coney Island, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an investigation.
According to the police, the woman was sitting motionless, apparently asleep, in the parked F train in Coney Island around 7:30 a.m. Sunday when the man simply walked up to her and without a word took out a lighter and lit her on fire.
A 19-second video captured by a cellphone camera shows a man dressed like the person who was later arrested sitting on a bench on the platform and watching the flames engulf the woman. A passerby can be heard yelling, “This is a person right here” before screaming, “Oh, no!”
A uniformed police officer can be seen walking down the platform within a few feet of the burning woman without intervening. Another video that was posted to X shows several people watching the woman burn as she stands inside the subway car, motionless.
In the second video, the man who appears to be the suspect walks toward the woman while holding a coat or a blanket. But rather than putting it on her to smother the flames, he stands a couple of feet away and waves it at her, appearing to fan them.
Officers on patrol in the upper level of the station smelled the smoke and, along with a transit employee, rushed to the platform and doused the woman with a fire extinguisher, but it was too late: She was declared dead at the scene.
The police quickly circulated images of the suspect, and three teenagers called to report that they had seen a man who appeared to be him on another train in Brooklyn. Officers boarded a train in Manhattan and found the suspect wearing the same clothes he was wearing at the time of the attack.
Public outrage over crimes committed by undocumented immigrants was crucial to Donald J. Trump’s re-election in November. Mayor Eric Adams has adopted some of Mr. Trump’s tough-on-illegal-immigration rhetoric, declaring that migrants accused of crimes should not be entitled to due process under the Constitution.
I.C.E. said that once Mr. Zapeta-Calil was charged, its Enforcement and Removal Operations wing would lodge an immigration detainer with the New York authorities. A detainer is a notice that immigration authorities intend to take someone into custody if he is released from the local criminal justice system.
On Sunday, the mayor posted on X that the “heinous” attack “has no place in our subways.” In another post, Gov. Kathy Hochul called the killing “horrific.” Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, said at a news conference on Sunday that the incident was “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being.”
In cold weather, homeless people often seek refuge in the warmth of subway lines that have long routes, including the F which takes about an hour and 40 minutes to get from Jamaica, Queens, to Coney Island. The temperature plunged to 16 degrees Saturday night.
Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said in a statement on Monday, “This gruesome and senseless act of violence against a vulnerable woman will be met with the most serious consequences.”
The killing was seemingly an unprovoked attack against a stranger — part of a string of attacks that have fed a persistent sense that the subways are unsafe.
On Sunday, at around 12:35 a.m., one person was killed and another injured in a stabbing on a southbound 7 train in Queens at the 61 St-Woodside station., the police said. A 26-year-old man was taken into custody.
In February, an overnight slashing attack injured a conductor on an A train.
Last month, commuters had to shelter on subway car floors as the police searched for a gunman who had shot someone and fled into the subway.
But according to the police, crime overall has been falling in the subway. Through October, the most recent month for which figures were available, there were 6 percent fewer major crimes in the transit system this year than last year, the police said.
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