NEW YORK — A man set himself on fire Friday afternoon near the lower Manhattan courthouse where jurors were being chosen for the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump.
A man with ties to the Triangle area set himself on fire Friday afternoon near the lower Manhattan courthouse where jurors were being chosen for the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump.
The man, who had lingered outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse earlier this week, doused himself with accelerant 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 and tried to put out the flames, but the intensity of the heat could be felt from some distance.
After a minute or two, dozens of police officers arrived, running around and climbing over barricades to extinguish the blaze. The man was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to a hospital burn unit. He died Friday night.
City officials identified the man as Max Azzarello, 37, of St. Augustine, Florida. Azzarello attended UNC Chapel Hill starting in 2005.
Azzarello had appeared outside the courthouse Thursday, holding 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.”
Azzarello walked around lower Manhattan earlier in the week, holding a sign Wednesday critical of New York University at Washington Square Park before moving Thursday to Collect Pond Park.
At the park Thursday, 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 Trump and President Joe 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.
