This year will go down as the deadliest in the New York City subways in decades, if not ever. The indescribably savage immolation of a woman passenger on the morning of December 22 brings the number of murders in the subway in 2024 to 11. Since 2020, 40 people have been murdered in the system, more than the total number dating back to 1990.
Images of the scene from Sunday morning are ghastly. A human figure is engulfed in flames while a man, eventually identified as the killer, sits calmly watching a few yards away. The murderer, an illegal migrant from Guatemala, evidently used a lighter to set his victim’s clothes aflame. He was caught later that day, snoozing on another train.
