A masked serial killer cruelly set fire to a sleeping subway rider during a bizarre hour-long ride through Manhattan and Queens last week, police said.
The fire first set fire to a parked NYPD police cruiser near City Hall at about 2:20 a.m. in front of 254 Broadway on Jan. 10, according to cops.
About 15 minutes later, the arsonist — seen in surveillance footage wearing a black puffer jacket, a black hoodie and a rear-facing mask — set fire to another empty vehicle near 14 Murray Street, the NYPD said.
Police said that both cars were damaged by fire.
In his third fire, the pyromaniac set fire to a paper cup and threw it in a trash can near the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall train station.
Then the fire broke out again — setting a pile of trash on fire next to a sleeping man on a northbound J train inside the Woodhaven Avenue station around 3:40 a.m., according to police and subway surveillance footage.
A bizarre video released by the NYPD shows the arsonist lurking over a subway passenger as flames rage next to the unsuspecting man.
The video shows that the fire bug then exited the train.
The NYPD's Fire and Explosion Unit is investigating the spate of fires, police said.
The incidents come weeks after Guatemalan migrant Sebastian Zabita Calil, 33, burned to death sleeping homeless woman Debrina Kaoam, 57, on a Brooklyn F train.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or in Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging on to the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or at X@NYPDTips.
