MANHATTAN (CN) — Shortly after the conclusion of jury selection in the historic first criminal trial of former president Donald Trump on Friday afternoon, a man set himself on fire in the center of a park directly across the street from the courthouse where the trial is being held.
Captured on video by some of the abundant camera crews lining Centre Street in Lower Manhattan during the duration of Trump’s trial, the man reportedly doused himself with an accelerant liquid and ignited himself in the center of the park on Friday afternoon.
Graphic videos of the incident show him burning for some two to three minutes before Fire Department first responders extinguished him, placed him on a gurney, and evacuated him for medical attention.
Politico reporter Emily Ngo described him as “responsive” when he was removed from the park, but he was “very, very badly burned” and his body was “charred.”
The man was identified by law enforcement as Max Azzarello, a Florida man who characterized himself online as an “investigative researcher.”
Azzarello died Friday night.
He was “in critical condition, but is alive and intubated at [Weill] Cornell Burn Center,” New York City Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said at the briefing early on Friday afternoon.
Authorities also defended the emergency responders’ two-minute response time.
Over a hundred media outlets are covering the Trump trial at 100 Centre Street, with dozens of professional camera crews set up along the Eastern fence of the park.
Bystanders on the closed-off perimeter of the park could smell the lingering scent of the blaze as the April breeze blew the pale dried residue of the fire extinguisher spray across the park.
Azzarello reportedly tossed handfuls of pamphlets into the park prior to the blaze.
A hand drawn poster left in Collect Pond Park read “The Ponzi Papers http://Substack.com", which a website link to blog titled "I have set myself on fire outside the Trump Trial."
The author’s conspiracy manifesto airs grievances against what he calls a “hellish fascist dystopia” that includes cryptocurrency, climate change, Covid vaccines, Palantir Technologies founder Peter Thiel, artificial intelligence, and “The Simpsons” cartoon television show.
A man of the same name with a Saint Augustine, Florida address filed a pro se civil complaint in Manhattan federal court a year ago that named as co-defendants The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, Mark Zuckerberg, Stanford University, Sam Bankman-Fried and Richard Branson, among other finance and technology figures.
Law enforcement officials said Friday they found no link to Donald Trump.
Collect Pond Park has been the site of sparsely attended demonstrations, both pro- and anti-Trump during the trial so far this month, as well as more fully packed events last year surrounding Trump’s initial arraignment.
In this case, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — charges brought last year by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
After opening arguments on Monday, the trial is anticipated to last up to six weeks.
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