Man identified by police as Max Azzarello, from Florida, declared dead after incident outside lower Manhattan courthouse
A man has died after setting himself on fire outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush-money trial is taking place.
The New York City police department said on Saturday the man had been declared dead by staff at an area hospital.
Officials had said earlier the man, who was in his late 30s, was in critical condition.
The New York police department said the man, who they identified as Max Azzarello of St Augustine, Florida, did not appear to be targeting Trump or others involved in the trial.
Witnesses said the man pulled pamphlets out of a backpack and threw them in the air before he doused himself with a liquid and set himself on fire on Friday. One of those pamphlets included references to “evil billionaires” but portions that were visible to a Reuters witness did not mention Trump.
Basically a manifesto asserting that everyone with power is colluding to mount a fascist coup d’état on America; Bush v Gore was a fake double team to get Bush the presidency, The Simpsons is some kind of propaganda meant to dupe us into being slovenly dopes forced into doing the bidding of billionaire overlords, um, I think there was some accusations levied against the Epstein victims for being pawns of some greater scheme, et cetera and whatever. Oh, also a crypto Ponzi scheme.
From the limited info I heard, he was a normal, decent guy, but he had some kind of psychotic break a couple of years ago after his mom died; that said, if anyone has more/better information, please feel free to correct me.
Went from “weird” to “sad and tragic” pretty quick. Honestly, it makes me worried about my own mental health in a big way should I face a similar kind of tragedy.