Police arrested a man on a New York subway yesterday morning and allegedly set a sleeping woman on fire, killing her.

The woman, who has not been identified, was sitting motionless on a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station in Brooklyn at around 7:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. Irish time) when an unknown man approached her and her Clinging to clothing with a lighter, the New York police said.

Police said there was no interaction before the attack and they do not believe the two people knew each other.

The man got out of the car as police patrolling the station rushed to the fire.

“What they saw was a person completely engulfed in flames in the train car,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference.

A video posted on social media by a bystander showed a man sitting on a bench on the train platform a few steps away from the burning woman, wearing a gray hoodie similar to that of the suspect arrested later that day.

When asked if the man watching from the bench was the attacker, police said responding officers had no reason to believe he was a suspect when they rushed to the woman’s aid.

Police used fire extinguishers to put out the fire and the woman was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency responders.

Police arrested a suspect, who has not been publicly identified, as he rode the subway later in the day.

They said they were still investigating the identity of the victim and the reason for the attack.

About 4 million trips are made each weekday on the city’s subway, where violent crime is relatively rare.

According to police data, as of November, nine murders have been reported on the subway in 2024, compared to five during the same period in 2023.

Earlier this month, a jury acquitted Daniel Penny of manslaughter in the manslaughter of homeless former Michael Jackson impersonator Jordan Neely on the city’s subway.

Neely had been shouting angrily at subway passengers when Penny grabbed him from behind and held him in a chokehold for several minutes.