A man who set himself on fire on Friday outside the courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has died, police said.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man, who was identified as Maxwell Azzarello from Florida, was declared dead by staff at a hospital in the area, according to NBC News.
Azzarello was seen entering Collect Pond Park in Manhattan around 1:30 p.m. on Friday, before taking out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories and tossing them around. He subsequently doused himself with an accelerant and set himself on fire.
The pamphlets were titled “The True History of the World” and linked to a Substack post that reads, “I am an investigative researcher who has set himself on fire outside of the Trump trial in Manhattan.”
The post includes conspiratorial ideas about the US government.
“We are victims of a totalitarian con, and our own government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup,” reads the post.
The man burned for several minutes in front of television cameras set up outside the courthouse, where the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president is taking place.
The NYPD said Azzarello was later transported to the burns unit at Weill Cornell Medical Center in a critical condition.
Read more at Newsweek.com
What Are Your Thoughts?
