A man set himself on fire on Friday afternoon near the Lower Manhattan courthouse where jurors were being chosen for the criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump.
The man, who had lingered outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse earlier this week, doused himself with accelerant at around 1:35 p.m. in Collect Pond Park, across the street from the building. Onlookers screamed and started to run, and soon, bright orange flames engulfed the man. He threw leaflets espousing anti-government conspiracy theories into the air before setting himself on fire.
People rushed to extinguish the flames, but the intensity of the heat could be felt several hundred feet away.
After a few minutes, dozens of police officers arrived to smother the blaze. The man was loaded into an ambulance and rushed away. The New York Fire Department said he was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
A high-ranking Police Department official identified the man as Max Azzarello, 37, of St. Augustine, Fla. The official requested anonymity because the man had not been publicly identified. Mr. Azzarello had appeared outside the courthouse on Thursday with a sign displaying the address of a website where the same pamphlets were uploaded. The top post of the website says, “I have set myself on fire outside the Trump Trial.”
At the park on Thursday, Mr. Azzarello had held up various signs and at one point shouted toward a group of reporters gathered there: “Biggest scoop of your life or your money back!” One of his signs claimed that Mr. Trump and President Biden were “about to fascist coup us.”
In an interview that day, he said his critical views of the American government were shaped by his research into Peter Thiel, the technology billionaire and political provocateur who is a major campaign donor, and into cryptocurrency.
Mr. Azzarello said he had planned to protest at Washington Square Park near New York University but thought that with the cold weather, more people would be outside the courthouse.
“Trump’s in on it,” Mr. Azzarello said on Thursday. “It’s a secret kleptocracy, and it can only lead to an apocalyptic fascist coup.”
People who witnessed the fire said they were in disbelief as they saw Mr. Azzarello, who was in an area of the park reserved for supporters of Mr. Trump, toss the pamphlets into the air and then flames shoot toward the sky. Mr. Azzarello, who was wearing jeans and dark gray T-shirt, fell to the ground amid the fire.
Some of the pamphlets referred to New York University as a “mob front” and also mentioned former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Al Gore and the lawyer David Boies, who represented Mr. Gore in the 2000 presidential election recount. Another pamphlet contained anti-government conspiracy theories, though they did not point in a discernible political direction.
Al Baker, a spokesman for the court system, said the trial schedule would not be affected, though one court officer had been taken to hospital because of the effects of smoke inhalation.
Fred Gates, 60, said he had been riding his bike through the park when he stopped to watch the Trump supporters and saw Mr. Azzarello getting ready to light himself on fire. Mr. Gates said he thought it was a prank or a performance until he saw the flames.
Another witness, Gideon Oliver, a civil rights lawyer, said he saw smoke rising from the park and a court officer rushing from a building carrying a fire extinguisher.
“When I saw and smelled the smoke I thought someone, I assumed one of the pro-Trump protesters, had lit a fire in the park,” Mr. Oliver said. “When I saw police and court officers running, I then thought it might have been a bomb.”
Mr. Azzarello stood tall as he poured the accelerant on himself and then held a flame at chest level. As people nearest him fled, others cried out as they realized what he was about to do.
Screams and shouts — though not from him — filled the air as the flames consumed him and he slowly collapsed.
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