{"id":26282,"date":"2024-04-20T02:39:46","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T07:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=26282"},"modified":"2024-04-20T02:39:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T07:39:54","slug":"man-sets-himself-on-fire-outside-courthouse-where-trump-is-on-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=26282","title":{"rendered":"Man sets himself on fire outside courthouse where Trump is on trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A man set himself on fire in a park across the street from the New York City courthouse&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/live-updates\/trump-hush-money-trial?id=108402689\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">where former President Donald Trump is on trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The man, Maxwell Azzarello, was badly burned and taken to a hospital in critical condition, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Trump was inside the downtown Manhattan courthouse at the time and was made aware of the fire outside, sources told ABC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\" id=\"MORETrumphushmoneytrbody\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/live-updates\/trump-hush-money-trial?id=108402689\"><\/a>The NYPD said there were no threats to public safety but the NYPD Bomb Squad was sweeping the area out of an abundance of caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Azzarello took pamphlets out of his backpack and threw them around the park before pulling out a canister, pouring a liquid on himself and lighting himself on fire, Jeffrey Maddrey, NYPD&#8217;s chief of department, said at a news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">He eventually fell to the ground and civilians, police and court officers ran into the park to try to extinguish the blaze, Maddrey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;He doused himself and threw these pamphlets across the park &#8230; and immediately just lit himself on fire,&#8221; one witness told ABC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The witness said the flames &#8220;were just massive immediately.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Pretty horrific thing to see,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The pamphlets appeared to be &#8220;propaganda-based,&#8221; officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Officials described Azzarello as a &#8220;conspiracy theorist.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Azzarello is from St. Augustine, Florida, and arrived in New York earlier in the week, officials said. It appears he acted alone, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We\u2019re very concerned,&#8221; Maddrey said. He said the NYPD will review security protocol because of the &#8220;gravity of the event going on,&#8221; referring to the Trump trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Trump is facing felony charges related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. It marks the first time in history that a former U.S. president has been tried on criminal charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The trial began on Monday with jury selection. The full jury panel was selected by midday Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Opening statements will take place Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/.go.com\/US\/man-apparently-sets-fire-courthouse-trump-trial\/story?id=109433903\">abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A man set himself on fire in a park across the street from the New York City courthouse&nbsp;where former President Donald Trump is on trial. The man, Maxwell Azzarello, was badly burned and taken to a hospital in critical condition, officials said. Trump was inside the downtown Manhattan courthouse at the time and was made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26283,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23521,1723,5412,1230],"class_list":["post-26282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-a-man","tag-court","tag-on-trial","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26284,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26282\/revisions\/26284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}