A 37-year-old man was in critical condition after setting himself on fire Friday outside of New York’s Manhattan Supreme Court during jury selection for former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial, authorities said.
The man entered Collect Pond Park in lower Manhattan just before 2 p.m. and threw pamphlets into the air from a backpack before dousing himself with an alcohol-based cleaning liquid and lighting himself on fire, police said.
The pamphlets were described by police as “propaganda-based,” and included writings on conspiracy theories and Ponzi schemes.
Witnesses at the scene rushed to the man’s aid, attempting to extinguish the flames with jackets and fire extinguishers, before emergency personnel arrived and put out the flames, New York Police Department Chief Jeffrey Maddrey said at a press conference.
CNN chief legal analyst Laura Coates, reporting live from the scene, described seeing a man burning while people tried to put out the fire. Video aired by Fox News also appeared to show a fire blazing among park benches.
“They are putting jackets over the body of this man,” Fox News reporter Eric Shawn said from the scene.
Emergency crews rushed a person away on a stretcher after the fire was extinguished, The Associated Press reported.
The man was taken to a burn center at Cornell Medical Center. Police described his condition as “very critical” and easily subject to change.
The man, identified as Maxwell Azzarello, arrived in New York sometime this week from St. Augustine, Florida. His family, reached by police following the incident, said they were not aware that he was in New York, police said.
Police said they were combing through Azzarello’s social media accounts, and said he appeared to have posted something online about the incident before it happened.
Tarik Sheppard, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of public information, said there was no indication that the incident was a targeted attack. They are “labeling it as a sort of conspiracy theorist,” Sheppard said at the afternoon press conference.
Some of the pamphlets referenced former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Al Gore and lawyer David Boies, who represented Gore in the 2000 presidential election recount, according to The New York Times.
Police said they will continue to review security protocols in the area to make sure they have proper security as the trial continues.
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