Sanctuary city pressured after illegal migrant allegedly burns woman alive
By: Mollie Markowitz
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In an unprecedented public attack that quickly spread across social media, a woman was lit on fire and burned to death on a subway train in Brooklyn, New York, on Sunday. The suspect arrested in connection to her heinous death is a previously deported migrant from Guatemala, as calls to end New York City's sanctuary policies enacted under former Mayor Bill de Blasio are escalating.
Sources previously identified the person of interest to Fox News Digital as Sebastian Zapeta, 33, who has been charged with first- and second-degree murder, as well as first-degree arson.
Zapeta was apprehended by Border Patrol and subsequently deported by the Trump administration in June 2018 after he crossed illegally into Sonoita, Arizona, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Marie Ferguson told Fox News, adding that Zapeta later re-entered the U.S. illegally.
"It's beyond time to end sanctuary-city policies in New York," the New York Post editorial board wrote, adding that Zapeta "re-enteredthe country and, at some point thereafter, headed for New York,where local policies guarantee shelter, food and other taxpayer-funded aid to migrantsand forbid cops from working with ICE to deport even the ones who commit new crimes."
"In other words, he went where he'd be most able to do anything and everything he wanted, without much regard for the law or fear of consequences," the board continued.
Surveillance video of Sunday's attack showed the suspect approaching the woman, who was sitting motionless and may have been sleeping, while aboard a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station and then setting her on fire.
"As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked up to the victim," Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a press conference on Sunday evening, adding that the female victim was in a seated position. "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."
The suspect then stayed on the scene and sat on a bench just outside the train car, as officers and a transit worker extinguished the flames. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
After three high school-aged New Yorkers called 911, the suspect was arrested just hours after the attack while riding on the same subway line. He was found with a lighter in his pocket, according to Tisch.
"People are tired of the revolving door where people are constantly committing violent crimes and back on our streets…it is not a safe haven for those who are committing criminal acts," New York City Mayor Eric Adams told Fox News last week in a discussion about the city's sanctuary policies. "Violent individuals should not remain in our country."
Adams is the first big city mayor to sit down with incoming border czar Tom Homan against the wishes of his own city leaders, saying he will work with the Trump administration to deport migrant criminals from his city.
This month and prior to Sunday's attack, Adams said there has been a 22-week drop in migrant arrivals into New York City, allowing for the closure of many of the migrant shelters used for housing, though the city has seen more than 225,000 migrants arrive since 2022, a surge that coincided with a spike at the southern border.
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Yet more blood on his hands as he walks off....
Stop prosecuting innocent people. It is the guilty that are afflicted. This dude is in the hands of the law where he should be. . . and that is according to some conservatives who see all crimes/criminals as needing to have their 'day' in a court of law where s/he can be critically and legally assessed and if found guilty of a crime: punished. According to some conservatives that is all there is needed to do (here). Be consistent.
In the new year it would be. . . decent. . .if we (all) stop with the slanting of stories to one side or another. . . and aim for its >>center << figuratively speaking, of course.
The "dude" shouldn't have been in the country to begin with!
Did you miss this?
Why did the Biden Administration allow this criminal to gain entry to this country? Why did the sanctuary city of NY cater to his and all other illegal immigrant every whim so they felt entitle to pull not only this crime but others?
Stop defending Democrats enabling of criminal illegal immigrants to remain in this country. If they aren't here, they can't commit crimes here.
Flooding our already overcrowded prison system will illegal immigrant criminals isn't the answer either.