A man set himself on fire outside the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump’s criminal trial is taking place.
Reporters who were present at the scene quickly took to social media to share the disturbing footage, although details on the incident remain scarce.
According to Politico reporter Emilo Ngo, the police response was slow due to the heightened security measures in place around the courthouse due to the former president’s presence within the building. Police were cut off from the man by barricades that were constructed around the area.
The incident was captured live on television by outlets including Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. A Fox reporter, who was reporting live at the time, said, “There’s a fire that has started, as you can see live…we wonder if a person is on fire.”
The reporter quickly apologized for showing the fire to viewers and asked the network crew, “Do we have a fire extinguisher in the truck?” before reporting that responders had “put jackets” over the body of a man and were using fire extinguishers to put out the flames.
CNN’s Laura Coates, who was also reporting live, told viewers, “We are watching a man who is fully emblazoned in front of the courthouse today,” adding, “We have seen an arm that has been visible that has been engulfed in total flames.”
The New York Times reported that the individual was a “young man” who “threw multicolored pamphlets in the air before lighting himself on fire.”
The Times also noted that “it took several minutes for police officers to rush to the scene.”
According to the report, the man collapsed before being smothered with a detective’s coat to extinguish the flames. He was then taken away in an ambulance, still moving as officers asked him his name.
As of now, the motivations behind this disturbing incident remain unclear.
In February, a similar event occurred when a U.S. Air Force member died one day after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., during a protest against Israel’s military offensive against radical Islamic terrorists in Gaza.
Warning: The following footage is graphic.
https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1781383093678391370