Cops Seek Firebug Who Torched One NYPD Cruiser and Set 2 Other Fires Downtown
From the streets around City Hall to a J train in Queens, a pyromaniac set several fires, spreading dancing flames and potential death before fleeing.
| 26 Jan 2025 | 01:55
Surveillance photo of suspect on J train. Note “shiesty mask.” (
)
Surveillance photo of arsonist in Brooklyn Bridge station, Manhattan, Jan. 10, 2025. (
)
These are the armies of the night.
On one side, a lone arsonist, an incendiary, a firebug. By any name, the unidentified suspect is a man who, it appears, loves to set fires. His dress for his crime spree: a black puffer jacket with pink zipper trim; black hoodie; black balaclava (aka a “shiesty” mask); fingerless black gloves.
With only forehead and upper nose, dark eyes and black eyebrows visible, the suspect’s ethnicity is unknown, but cops think he is most likely Hispanic or possibly Asian.
On the other side, the side of public safety, is the NYPD.
The facts of the crime spree, which began within the confines of the 1st Precinct are as follows:
In the early morning of Friday, Jan. 10, at approximately 2:20 a.m., an unidentified male set a marked police emergency vehicle ablaze while it was parked on the block of Broadway between Warren and Murray streets.
Although police reports identify the address the vehicle was burned parked outside of as 254 Broadway, Straus News has confirmed there is no such address. Rather, it was a typo denoting one of the two large buildings that do occupy the block: 253 Broadway, at Murray Street.
[It’s worth noting that the other building on the block, 258 Broadway, represents one of the endearing quirks on Manhattan geography, i.e., a block that includes both odd- and even-numbered buildings on the same, west, side of the street, which has City Hall Park on its eastern side.]
Apparently not satisfied with the dancing flames he’d already initiated, at around 2:35 a.m. the suspect reappeared outside 14 Murray St., a currently vacant five-story commercial building standing midblock between Broadway and Church Street, and set another unoccupied vehicle ablaze.
What motivated this self-styled street Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, is unknown but he was not yet sated.
At approximately 2:55 a.m., the same flame-loving fiend stood near a garbage can outside the Brooklyn Bridge subway station opposite City Hall, lit a paper cup on fire and tossed it into a garbage can.
Lastly, the burning of Manhattan seemingly over, the suspect vanished—only to reappear at around 3:40 a.m. on a northbound J train at the Woodhaven Avenue station in Queens. Seeing a pile of garbage next to a sleeping passenger, the pyromaniac set the trash ablaze.
Thankfully, there were no reported injuries. (And as an interesting footnote, the J train was one of the four subway lines that received the first batch of extra two-man police patrols at night between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.)
Unhappily, the perpetrator of this crime and prior crimes fled on foot from the Woodhaven Station to parts unknown.
This incident is being investigated by the NYPD’s Arson and Explosion Unit.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on X @NYPDTips.