Brooklyn transit police chief says cop who walked by burning woman in subway case responded 'perfectly'

Do New York's subways sound like the kind of place where you'd like to take a ride?

Three days before Christmas, an illegal alien set a dozing woman on fire, and as she engulfed in flames before the abundant video filmers, a seemingly lackadaisical police officer clopping by like a routine beat cop walked by, not looking at the fiery, walking horror literally in front of him.

Here is a hideous screen shot from one of the dozens of videos on X, showing the cop just walking by without rendering aid:

New York subway fire woman on fire, cop walks by

It was so hard to look at.

He didn't help her. What happened to standard person-on-fire measures, taught by emergency first responders to every school kid -- stop, drop, and roll. Why didn't he throw his coat on her to try to save her life? Based on the disturbing video, the cop just let her burn as the illegal who set her on fire literally fanned the flames.

Nothing to see here, move along.

(Which was what one cop pretty much told the illegal, unaware that he was the arsonist who set the woman on fire, and the illegal almost got away.)

And according to the New York authorities, all was fine and dandy, as both the transit cop chief and the district attorney defended the police response.

According to CBS News:

... NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta said during a news conference on Sunday that several officers responded, and he praised their efforts.

"I think he did his job perfectly, as his fellow officers went and got MTA workers got fire extinguishers, and eventually were able to extinguish the individual," Gulotta said.

"Eventually," he said. Sound like the right urgency for a human being literally on fire?

The New York Times reported similar statements:

The footage of the Dec. 22 killing on the F train also showed a police officer walking by the woman, as she was in flames. The officer appears to walk past her without helping her, which led to public outrage and shock.

Joseph Gulotta, the department’s chief of transit, has praised the officer’s actions, saying he “did his job perfectly.” The officer stayed, trying to preserve the crime scene as other officers rushed to get fire extinguishers, he said during a news conference following the attack.

On Friday, [Brooklyn District Attorney Eric] Gonzalez also defended the officer.

“We believe that the officer, considering all the circumstances, all the smoke and flames that were in the train car at that time, did the most that he could do,” he said.

Did his job perfectly? The message sent here is that when an illegal sets you on fire in New York, you, too, can expect to be burned to a cinder, until the cops "eventually" get around to putting the fire out.

Now, I'm not an unfair person. The video seen was a snippet, and done by a gawker who should have been putting the fire out, too. A snippet isn't an entire event, and always lacks context.

Police officers have been unfairly railroaded based on snippets of video (e.g., the Rodney King or George Floyd incidents), so it's right to leave open the possibility that the transit cop chief and the district attorney are telling the truth. What's more, cops have be unfairly under fire by leftists in recent years.

And even if this cop is the laziest, most cowardly cop on the planet, I am against doxxing any cop.

But it's bad communication here from these authorities, simply dismissing any criticism of the police response as baseless even though people know what they have seen with their own eyes.

Gulotta tried to claim that the cop was "securing the crime scene" when it was pretty clear he was not -- the bad guy fanning the flames on the victim actually got away.

Gonzalez tried to claim that the cop was constrained by smoke and flames, but didn't explain why the cop was so close to the smoke and flames that he could have helped the woman, nor did he explain why the accused killer didn't have any problems with smoke or flames as he walked up to the victim to fan the flames. New Yorkers could see the picture -- the victim was in front of the door of the open subway car door where there would be more fresh air than in a closed subway car.

They ought to explain these things with some level of seriousness. They have a public relations problem they are treating as a minor matter. If they'd like to dispel the idea that this was a crony coverup, one hand washing the other, or someone protecting lazy cops, they need to lay this out with credible explanations.

They seem to forget that such thumb-twiddling among the subway personnel has been an issue before.

When I lived in New York 20 years ago, subway employees came under public criticism for doing nothing when a woman was being raped by a criminal right in front of their eyes.

Nothing to see here, move along.

If cops can't be counted on to show courage under fire, then they are basically hall monitors, and that raises questions as to why the public should be paying them as they do. If they want to 'serve' like hall monitors, they should be paid like hall monitors. Forget the lionization of cops as brave and selfless in the absence of any credible explanation on this matter.

New York's cops make six-figure salaries because they are supposed to be extraordinary. Doing nothing in an emergency tells us of time-card keepers and cowards who have lost their sense of mission. It suggests powerful unions that protect them no matter how little they do, and management that punishes them if they do anything outside "regulations."

It could be any of these things. Or it could be that the cops acted properly.

But these officials are going to have to explain to us why it's acting properly to walk by when another human being is on fire.

If they don't, the message sent is that that's what they'll do to the next guy on fire, and plenty of subway riders are going to take note and get some other means of transportation.

Why would anyone ride a New York subway if what we have just seen is the perfect police response to someone burning in front of them?

Image: Screen shot from X video // fair use

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