Kathy Hochul faced criticism from both Republicans and Democrats after she shared photos boasting about the safety of the New York City subway system shortly after a tragic incident where a woman was fatally burned on a train.
The horrifying event took place on a Sunday morning at a station in Coney Island, involving an F train that the victim was on. Tragically, the woman did not die immediately but succumbed to her severe injuries later, as police discovered her engulfed in flames.
Authorities responded to a call about a woman in distress at the location. Subsequently, officers were observed covering one of the train’s windows with a tarp, presumably to shield onlookers from the distressing sight.
Sebastin Zapeta, 33, a Guatemalan migrant, was taken into custody hours after he allegedly lit the woman on fire and fled the scene, according to Fox News.
At 3:40pm Sunday, hours after the story broke, the New York Governor Hochul bizarrely posted photos of herself smiling with straphangers as she praised the safety of the subway lines.
‘In March, I took action to make our subways safer for the millions of people who take the trains each day,’ she said.
Hochul referenced her efforts earlier this year to send National Guard members to help police conduct random searches of riders´ bags for weapons following a series of high-profile crimes on city trains.
She recently deployed additional members to help patrol during the holiday season.
‘Since deploying the @NationalGuardNY to support @NYPDnews and @MTA safety efforts and adding cameras to all subway cars, crime is going down, and ridership is going up,’ she added, making no mention of the woman who was burned alive.
Councilman Joe Borelli, the GOP leader of the far left-leaning New York City Council, posted the tweet with the remark: ‘Aged like milk.’
However, Hochul was slammed by her own party as well, with Congressman Ritchie Torres – who has teased a primary challenge to the governor in 2026 – destroying her for the post.
‘Two hours ago, Kathy Hochul took a victory lap for making subways ‘safer.’ She congratulates herself on the same day two subway riders were stabbed in Queens (one in the face and one in the chest) and another was barbarically burned alive.’
Torres asked: ‘Has there ever been a more tone-deaf Governor in the history of New York?’
Hochul appeared to do her own U-turn on the subway later in the day when praising the NYPD for arresting the suspect.
‘Make no mistake: any crime is one too many, even with subway crime going down. We are continuing to surge personnel and resources to make our subways safer.’
As Torres noted, the case marked the second fatality on a New York subway Sunday.
At 12:35 a.m., police responded to an emergency call for an assault in progress at the 61st Street-Woodside Station in Queens and found a 37-year-old man with a stab wound to his torso and a 26-year-old man with multiple slashes throughout his body.
The older man was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital while the younger man was in stable condition, police said.
An investigation was continuing. These combined to make for 11 homicides on the New York City subway in 2024. As recently as 2017, there were none.
Zapeta was caught while riding a train at 34th Street in Manhattan, when three high schoolers identified the suspected killer at the 34th Street station in Manhattan and waved down the cops, the New York Post reports.
The train was ordered to stop at the next station, where two transit officers boarded the train and located the person of interest, before taking him into custody.
Zapeta has not yet been charged with any wrongdoing, but is accused of lighting the woman on fire at around 7.29am.
Police say the victim was sleeping when Zapeta, who was sitting across from her onboard an F train at a station in Coney Island, got up, walked over and lit her on fire.
‘The suspect used what we believe to be a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,’ Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference Sunday night.
Zapeta was caught on camera at the station sitting on a bench and watching as the woman was engulfed in flames.
Cops briefly talked to him and told him to clear the area in the immediate aftermath.
They put out the fire with the help of an MTA employee, before the woman died from her injuries at around 7.30am.
Then at around 1pm, police were seen carrying a body bag out of the train and placing it on a gurney, before transporting it to a Medical Examiner’s van.
‘On Sunday… at approximately 0729 hours, an unidentified female victim was sleeping aboard a stationary “F” train at the Stillwell Avenue Subway station when an unknown male individual approached and lit the victim on fire,’ police later said in a statement.
‘The individual then left the subway car. The victim was pronounced deceased by EMS at the scene.’
Police added that the woman was found with a litany of liquor bottles – though law enforcement sources who spoke to The New York Post said investigators remain stumped as to whether that played a part in the fire.
No other information was readily available about the female victim, and the suspect’s motive – if any – still remains unclear.
Meanwhile, authorities are also working to determine whether the suspect is in the country legally.
He had entered the United States and was detained by border patrol agents in June 2018, but did not appear to have any previous criminal history in New York.
Yet Sunday’s murder left service for the F train shut down in both directions.
The 5 and 6 platform, in addition to that of the F train, were also roped off with police tape as a result, as witnesses were left reeling.
One MTA employee told the Post: ‘It just looked like all the clothes were burnt off.
‘I was just walking by. The cops [were] there already. I didn’t see her in flames, but that’s what I heard,’ the unidentified worker said, explaining, ‘They shut the lights off [in the train car] so nobody could see.
‘That s*** is crazy – it’s only three days until Christmas,’ he noted. ‘That’s messed up.’
Alex Gureyev, a 39-year-old construction manager, also said New York City’s subway system is ‘going downhill a bit.
‘Everybody keeps saying its going back to the ’70s,’ he said, referencing a time of high crime in the Big Apple.
‘It’s a frequent occurrence – not like this, setting people on fire – but like the mugging, the killings, the fighting, the shootings – they’re really common nowadays,’ Gureyev said. ‘[It’s] very bad.’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams also said his prayers are with the victim’s family in ‘this senseless killing.’
He added that he is ‘grateful to the young New Yorkers and transit officers who stepped up to help our NYPD make a quick arrest following this morning’s heinous and deadly subway attack.
‘This type of depraved behavior has no place in our subways and we are committed to working hard to ensure there is swift justice for all victims of violent crime,’ he said.
About a year ago, Hochul supported funding to install video cameras on every train car in the New York subway system, said Michael Kemper, chief security officer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
He and other officials on Sunday credited the cameras with helping to track down the suspect so quickly.
