Chilling footage has emerged of cops walking past a woman as she burned to death on a New York City subway while her accused killer watched from a nearby bench.
Disturbing videos show a man identified by the New York Post as Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, a 33-year-old migrant from Guatemala, sitting on the platform at Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn after he allegedly lit the unnamed passenger on fire as she slept on the F train just before 7.30am on Sunday.
Zapeta-Calil, who is now in custody, can even be seen fanning the flames in one clip while the victim leans on the subway carriage exit completely engulfed by the blaze and other New Yorkers capture the unfolding horror on their phones.
Meanwhile, an NYPD officer walks by and appears to wave his hand over the scene in exasperation, but does not intervene to detain the suspect or help the victim.
NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told a press conference that officers who responded were not aware the suspect was on the scene at the time.
DailyMail.com has asked for comment on why cops appear to have strolled past the burning woman several times without helping. Police have not yet charged Zapeta-Calil or identified the victim, who did not know each other.
Shocked social media users have blasted the police response – describing the behavior of cops caught on camera as ‘cowardly’ and ‘shameful’ while calling for them to be named or fired.
‘Police officer walks by. Doesn’t take his jacket off to smother the flames. Not his problem. Guess he doesn’t get paid too much. Can we find out who he is? His behavior is shameful,’ one person wrote on X.
‘I don’t know which is more wild. The fact she’s on fire and just standing there, or the guy who did it and is just sitting watching, the guy recording or the cop that just walked on by like all was normal,’ another said.
‘Many people freeze up in these situations, and some are just scared of getting hurt. The Police on the other hand, are there to protect and preserve life,’ another person chimed in.
‘They stood there and did nothing. One of them even got so fed up with the situation he waved his hands as if to say “I can’t be bothered with this anymore” and stormed off, as if an innocent woman dying was an inconvenience to him.’
‘The cop should go to jail for not helping. This is the oath they take. Coward,’ one person said, while another agreed, ‘that cop needs to be fired.’
Zapeta-Calil eventually boarded the F train again, and he was flagged by high schoolers at York Street Station in downtown Brooklyn who recognized him from police pictures distributed on Sunday.
NYPD officers alerted MTA, who stopped the train eight stops north from the sighting at Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan. Cops boarded the subway and detained Zapeta-Calil as he sat in a busy carriage, as caught in dramatic videos shared online.
Police Commissioner Tisch praised the police response to the heinous incident as ‘an example of great technology and even greater old fashioned police work’ during a press conference on Sunday night.
