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A man set himself on fire outside the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump is on trial.
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The fire was spotted in a park across the street from the courthouse.
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It is unclear what prompted the seleven–sacrifice or the condition of the victim.
A man set himself on fire Friday outside the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money trial is taking place, witnesses and police sources told Business Insider.
The incident took place in a barricaded area across the street from the Manhattan courthouse, where a full jury had just been seated in the historic trial of the former president.
Emergency responders received a 911 call at 1:37 p.m. and paramedics took a man in critical condition to a local hospital, a New York Police Department spokesman said.
“There are no further safety concerns at this time and the investigation is ongoing,” the spokesperson said.
Police later said at a 3 p.m. news conference that the man, whom Business Insider is not naming, is still alive and intubated.
The man was standing in Collect Pond Park, across the street from the courthouse, where some pro-Trump protesters showed their support for the former president.
An onlooker who said he was walking by told Business Insider he saw the man drop pamphlets on the ground and then turn to look.
“He took a can and poured it on himself,” said the witness, who asked not to be named.
According to the witness, the man then grabbed a lighter and set himself on fire.
“It was on fire for a while,” he said.
A police officer tried to put out the fire with a jacket but failed, according to another man at the scene.
Eventually, someone drove over with a fire extinguisher and officials loaded the man into an ambulance, he said.
Witnesses said people were screaming at the scene. The flames engulfed the man’s entire body.
Before the fire, the man threw a few dozen pamphlets entitled “The True History of the World.”
A QR code on the pamphlets linked to a Substack post published around the time of the fire.
In the post, one person claimed he was the one who set himself on fire. The post was filled with conspiratorial thoughts about the US government.
“I am an investigative investigator who set himself on fire outside the Trump trial in Manhattan,” he wrote.
The incident did not affect the ongoing trial against Trump as the court was on a lunch break at the time.
“Because we do not know the motivations behind this sickening situation, it is difficult to make any definitive comments other than to say that we are grateful that as far as we currently know, no one other than the person in question was injured,” he said. Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement to BI. “We also extend our condolences to the traumatized witnesses at the scene and express our deepest gratitude to the wonderful first responders of the City of New York for their actions.”
Running from the seleven–burning outside the courthouse where the Republican Party leader is on trial on charges of hush money payments to a porn star, back to the campaign the statement continued: “Today is proof that our nation is in deep trouble and perhaps more than ever we all need to work to Make America Great Again.”
This story is developing and will be updated.
Read the original article on Business Insider
