Many have claimed that bystanders simply watched and did nothing as an illegal Guatemalan immigrant set fire to a sleeping belt hanger aboard a Brooklyn subway train. At least three people can be seen in footage of the incident, one of whom even filmed the fire. An NYPD police officer stood outside the subway car on Sunday morning, December 22nd, as flames engulfed the victim.

Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, was later arrested. It was reported that he secretly returned to the United States after his deportation. He was charged with first- and second-degree murder and arson, the New York Post reported.

“It’s the Daniel Penny factor.”

“No one came to her aid,” said Curtis Sliwa, founder and community activist of Guardian Angels. “There’s no doubt that people don’t want to get involved. It’s the Daniel Penny factor. They are frozen people. You say to yourself, ‘I don’t want to be trapped like Penny.'”

“People should have run to the burning woman. They didn’t do anything. They didn’t say anything,” Sliwa added.

Penny was accused of suffocating tramp Jordan Neely after Neely aggressively confronted frightened passengers in a Manhattan subway car. The 26-year-old former Marine was charged with murder last year and acquitted of involuntary manslaughter charges earlier this month.

However, some people have observed that Penny’s legal troubles are giving potential Good Samaritans pause. “People are reluctant to get involved in criminal activity,” state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar, a Brooklyn resident, told the New York Post. “There are many New York City residents who think twice about acting because they believe they do not have the support of our Democratic elected officials. They are afraid of the revolving door justice system.”

“This murder should never have happened in the first place,” he added.

The chairman of the state Senate committee that oversees the MTA is now asking the transit agency for answers about specific deficiencies that the recent incident exposed. “We are asking for a breakdown of what happened, how it happened and why it took so long (to make an arrest),” said state Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-Queens), chairman of the committee.

“There is chaos out there because of the actions of previous governments,” Comrie added. “There are too many (mentally ill) people who should be placed in facilities that are on the streets. Some of these people need to have their movements restricted.”

After the incident, several videos made the rounds. One shows NYPD officers crowding a subway train in Manhattan to arrest the suspect. In an earlier video, Zapeta-Calil was seen calmly watching the woman he set on fire burn.