A woman died after she was set on fire aboard the New York City subway on an F train in Brooklyn, police say.
I've been trying to find out more about this because the story doesn't make any sense:
"he approached the sleeping woman, and then lit her on fire with what was believed to be a lighter. She added the victim's clothes became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds."
Clothing shouldn't just be flammable like that without some kind of accelerant.
The suspect being an immigrant is the main reason this will be a multi-day national story. It's a fucked up way to kill someone, but even with that in mind, there's no way they'd make a national story out of a homeless woman being murdered in NYC except to serve a broader agenda.
Homeless people might use layers of all kinds of stuff to stay warm (think newspaper, etc as a common material), they also don't have the privilege of being able to wash their clothes very often. There could have been all sorts of things that compromise the flame retardancy of the clothing.
People don't typically expect to be set on fucking fire while they sleep, so it's not usually a risk to be concerned about.
I'd rather hate the lack of mental health and support systems available. If it was just a random act of violence, he's the suspect is just mentally unwell and you can't really stop them without structural changes. It's not hard to find articles and articles about homeless people attacking random people with bricks in NYC.
I seem to remember a string of copycat attacks where lighter fluid or gas was sprayed inside a kiosk that contained a cashier or person taking tickets. Think there were several deaths.
Expect that an accelerant like gas or lighter fluid was used in this case. Doesn't take much.
I don’t know anything about this but in my misspent youth kids would take the regulator off adjustable disposable butane lighters and you could light the lighter and then basically pour the butane out of the lighter.
Something like that could surely ignite clothing and appear to be “just” a lighter.
Polyester propagates pretty easily if the fire is big enough. It only "self extinguishes" sometimes when the gloop of melted plastic falls off, or if the flame is small. But a large flame will for sure spread, especially if it's a thin and airy fabric or a blend.
(Am fire performer, I frequently light this shit on fire for safety demos)