New Yorkers were in an uproar on Monday, a day after an illegal Guatemalan immigrant allegedly burned a sleeping straphanger aboard a Brooklyn subway train — while bystanders did nothing.
Horrifying video footage of the incident shows at least three onlookers – one of whom filmed the shocking fatal fire with his cell phone – and an NYPD police officer standing outside the subway car as flames engulfed the unidentified victim following the attack on Sunday morning .
“No one came to her aid,” said Curtis Sliwa, founder and community activist of Guardian Angels. “There’s no doubt that people don’t want to get involved. It’s the Daniel Penny factor. They are frozen people. You say to yourself, “I don’t want to be trapped like Penny.”
“People should have run to the burning woman. They didn’t do anything. They didn’t say anything,” Sliwa said, calling bystanders’ reluctance to intervene “the Daniel Penny effect.”
Penny, a 26-year-old former Marine, was charged with murder last year for fatally choking tramp Jordan Neely after Neely aggressively confronted frightened passengers in a Manhattan subway car.
Penny was acquitted of manslaughter charges earlier this month.
However, according to some observers, his legal ordeal is giving the subway good Samaritans pause.
“People are reluctant to get involved in criminal activity,” state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar, a Brooklyn resident, told the Post on Monday. “There are many New York City residents who think twice about acting because they believe they do not have the support of our Democratic elected officials. They are afraid of the revolving door justice system.
“This murder should never have happened at all,” he said.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the state Senate committee that oversees the MTA said Monday he is demanding answers from the transit agency about deficiencies 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), chairman of the committee, said Monday The Post.
“It’s chaos out there because of the actions of previous governments,” Comrie said. “There are too many (mentally ill) people who should be placed in facilities that are on the streets. Some of these people need to have their movements restricted.”
The lawmakers spoke a day after a migrant identified by federal immigration officials as 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta-Calil was charged following the grisly incident on a Coney Island subway.
In a disturbing video, a man named Zapeta-Calil can be seen sitting calmly on a bench at the train station as the woman burned to death. He left the scene, but police later caught up with him as he got off a subway at the 34th Street-Herald Square station in Manhattan.
Sources said charges are pending and prosecutors in Brooklyn are awaiting the results of an autopsy — complicated by the burned condition of the victims’ bodies — to determine the cause of death.
However, the incident raises several questions, including why it took police so long to get to the burning woman, why Zapeta-Calil was allowed to leave the scene after police arrived, and why the required fire extinguishers were not in the subway car were used, sources said.
A former state trooper took aim at Gov. Kathy Hochul and raised concerns about the state transportation agency.
“We all witnessed the terrible tragedy on the F train,” former Brooklyn state Rep. Dov Hikind said on X. “I call on Governor Hochul, I plead and implore you to resign now.”
“This job is simply overwhelming. Unfortunately, there is no recall in New York, so I ask you to do the right thing,” Hikind said. “They took photos the day before the tragedy to show New York how safe the subways were. How pathetic.
“You may mean well, but being governor just isn’t for you. Evade.”
