In an unprecedented public attack that quickly spread across social media, a woman was set on fire and burned to death on a subway train Brooklyn, New Yorkon Sunday. The suspect arrested in connection with her heinous death is a migrant previously deported from Guatemala, as calls for an end to New York City’s sanctuary policies enacted under former Mayor Bill de Blasio continue become louder.
Sources previously identified the person of interest to Fox News Digital as Sebastin Zapeta, 33, who was charged with first- and second-degree murder and arson.
Zapeta was arrested by Border Patrol and subsequently deported by the Trump administration in June 2018 after he crossed illegally into Sonoita, Arizona, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Marie Ferguson told Fox News, adding that Zapeta later returned to the U.S. illegally.
NYPD officers escort a suspect wanted for a murder on the F train in Coney Island from a precinct in Lower Manhattan on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. (Courtesy: GN Miller/New York Post)
“It is not time to end New York’s sanctuary city policy,” he said The New York Post editorial board wrote: and added that Zapeta had “entered again.” the country and at some point made his way to New York, where local policies guarantee migrants shelter, food and other taxpayer-funded assistance and ban police from working with ICE to deport even those who commit new crimes.”
“In other words, he went where he could best do whatever he wanted without much regard for the law or fear of consequences,” the board continued.
Surveillance video of Sunday’s attack showed the suspect approaching the woman, who was sitting motionless and possibly sleeping, as he sat on a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station, and her then set on fire.
The NYPD arrested a migrant who allegedly set a woman on fire on the subway and watched her burn
Police investigate at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn after a woman set fire to and died aboard a subway car in New York, USA, on December 22, 2024. They approached her and set fire to her. She was pronounced dead at the scene. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked toward the victim,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a news conference Sunday evening, adding that the female victim was in a sitting position. “The suspect, we believe, used a lighter to set fire to the victim’s clothing, which was completely engulfed within seconds.”
The suspect then remained at the scene and sat on a bench directly in front of the train car while officers and a transit employee extinguished the flames. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
After three high school-aged New Yorkers called 911, the suspect was arrested while riding the same subway line just hours after the attack. According to the table, he was found with a lighter in his pocket.
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Police investigate the crime scene where a woman died after being hit by a man at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, USA, on Sunday, December 13 Aboard an MTA subway was set on fire on 22nd 2024. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“People are fed up with the revolving door of people constantly committing violent crimes and are back on our streets…it is not a safe haven for those who commit crimes,” New York City’s mayor said Eric Adams told Fox News last week in a discussion about the city’s sanctuary policies. “Violent people should not stay in our country.”
Adams is the first big city mayor to sit down with new border czar Tom Homan against the wishes of his own city leaders and say he will work with the Trump administration to deport criminal migrants from his city.
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This month and before Sunday’s attack, there was a 22-week decline in migrant arrivals in New York City, according to Adams, allowing many migrant shelters used as shelters to close, even though more than 225,000 migrants have arrived in the city since 2022 a rise that coincided with a surge at the southern border.
Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
