No one helped me.
The onlookers were too busy filming. What about the police? Yes, instead of wrapping their jackets around the burning woman on the F train that stopped at the Coney Island Stillwell Avenue Station on Sunday morning, they walked past her.
Then along came Sebastian Zapeta-Khalil. The animal was charged with lighting a match that set innocent subway riders on fire, sparking a hellish scene that felt like a metaphor for New York City's corrupt underbelly.
The film itself is a dystopian horror show. A female figure stands zombie-like while a sadistic tormentor sits on a platform and watches her body consumed by flames.
I'm sure someone threw a coat over her and yelled at her to run for water, stop, fall, and roll around. Found a fire extinguisher. cried for help. something. Most of us would like to think we would have acted to save her life.
However, the woman is already dead.
The entire scene of this gruesome murder embodies the multilayered nature of our dysfunctional cities and the decay of our society at large.
Zapeta Khalil was an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who burned a woman as she slept. He is not afraid of authority, as breaking the law has little repercussions here.
He reportedly snuck into our country in 2018, was deported, came back at some point, and is staying in a shelter on taxpayers' money. Remember when good New Yorkers said the immigration situation was unsustainable? It was deadly.
But there is also an appalling indifference towards our fellow citizens, horribly fascinated by cell phone filming without intervention.
Too many people shot subway snuff films and posted the footage, One man commented that it was like watching a mind-boggling immersive art exhibit.
“I'm sorry for the family. It's that person here,'' the photographer says, to which a chorus of “Oh no!'' echoes from the crowd of onlookers.
While watching, I was reminded of Daniel Penny. He is vindicating himself to an almost divine level as our leaders look more and more dangerously unhappy with every news episode.
Back in May 2023, Penny jumps in without hesitation to protect a fellow New Yorker from a subway maniac, who later dies. The former Marine was rewarded with criminal charges, a year and a half of hell, and a five-week trial by Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg. Thankfully he was acquitted, but the hangover still lingers.
People are hesitant to step in and help each other, even if someone is literally on fire.
What the heck is going on here?
Meanwhile, when this footage went viral on Sunday afternoon, our incompetent Governor Kathy Hochul shares X image She rides the subway and touts her success in fighting underground crime. The timing was farcical, but it turned out to be a good thing for her.
Our society feels very disconnected. Everything and everyone is disposable.
(The only heroes in this story were the high school students who noticed Zapeta-Khalil at the Jay Street Metrotech station later that day and called the police.)
Not so long ago, atrocities like self-immolation on the subway made headlines for weeks. We will live in that tragedy and feel it seep into our bones. Learning about the dreams they once had made us feel like we knew the victims and their families.
Politicians and the public will be united in our anger.
Now we read the article, shake our heads, and quickly move on to celebrity nonsense and influencers who have sex with 200 men a day. We're happy to distract ourselves with a hit of dopamine from whatever tilt the social media algorithms give us.
But as a city, we need to wake up from the calls that dull our senses.
We moved forward too quickly in 2022 when a psychotic homeless man with multiple arrests pushed Michelle Go in front of a train and killed her at Times Square Station. Later that year, we moved too quickly when Christina Yuna Lee, 35, was followed by the maniac Asamad Nash into her Chinatown apartment and hacked her to death. It was too much.
When a deranged gunman shot and killed a 48-year-old Goldman Sachs employee on the Q train on his way to brunch in 2022, Daniel Enriquez “died in vain,” as his sister put it. need to be remembered.
If we simply move forward, we've made it easier for politicians and activists to gaslight us and say, “Well, it's not that bad.” Or tell me that feeling that crime is bad, both underground and above ground, is just a perception.
we know that's not true. The incident is the 11th subway murder this year and the deadliest of this century, according to City Journal.
All of these are preventable.
But the more we ignore random violence, the more we condone it.
We need to demand action from our elected officials or vote for common-sense voters who want to ensure that the laws are enforced. Otherwise, this raging hell of anarchy will continue to burn.
