In a sign of the insane times we’re living through, an anti-government protester in the closed area for Trump’s followers, dropped his bag, tossed a handful of pamphlets into the air (a 2,000+-word screed saying that the “criminal government” should be “abolished”, with other ramblings about Jeffrey Epstein, etc.) — and doused himself with an unidentified liquid and lit himself on fire.
The incident happened around 1:30pm, just as the jury was being finalized.
CNN reported that the man was on fire for at least a minute before first responders arrived.
CNN reported that the man self-immolated Friday afternoon, which resulted in first responders trying to put out the flames with fire extinguishers and treating him with first aid.
It was not immediately clear what the man's motivation for setting himself on fire was. However, he was in a section of the park that was cordoned off for supporters of the former president to protest in.
From the New York Post:
Disturbing footage (WARNING) showed him in a seated position while completely engulfed in flames — then his blackened body twitching on the ground as people rushed over with fire extinguishers…
...In a rambling, incoherent 2,648-word manifesto, a man who identified himself as an “investigative researcher”, Max Azzarello, said he’d self-immolated as an “extreme act of protest” over a “totalitarian con” and impending “apocalyptic fascist world coup.”
It’s unknown whether the man was a Trump supporter or merely a general, anti-government conspiracy theorist. To make this even more surreal, his “manifesto” also said that “James L. Brooks made ‘The Simpsons’ to tell us that we have no choice but to slave away for evil billionaires” — which suggests that this man’s mind was pretty much all over the place, as the ramblings were also filled with a veritable greatest hits of right-wing conspiracies about Al Gore and Jeffrey Epstein.
UPDATE: More details on the man: www.the-express.com/...
If you know anyone who may be suffering from mental illness, don’t hesitate — there is help:
www.nimh.nih.gov/...