A man self-immolated Friday afternoon near the Lower Manhattan courthouse where jurors were being selected for former President Donald J. Trump's criminal trial.
The man remained outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse earlier this week when he drugged him at Collect Pond Park, across the street from the building, around 1:35 p.m. Onlookers screamed and started running, and soon bright orange flames engulfed the man. He threw leaflets into the air supporting anti-government conspiracy theories and then self-immolated.
People tried to put out the fire quickly, but the intensity of the heat could be felt even from a distance.
A minute or two later, dozens of police officers arrived, running around and climbing over barricades to put out the fire. The man was loaded into an ambulance and sped away. Officials said the man was taken to the hospital's burn unit in critical condition, but was unlikely to survive.
City officials identified the man as Max Azzarello, 37, of St. Augustine, Florida. Azzarello appeared outside the courthouse on Thursday holding a sign displaying the address of the website where the same pamphlet was uploaded. “I attempted self-immolation outside the Trump trial,” the top post on the website reads.
Mr. Azzarello walked around Lower Manhattan earlier in the week, held up signs criticizing NYU in Washington Square Park on Wednesday, and then moved to Collect Pond Park on Thursday.
On Thursday, Mr. Azzarello held up various placards in the park and at one point shouted to the assembled reporters: “I got the biggest scoop of my life, or give me my money back!” One of his signs was that Trump and President Biden were “trying to stage a fascist coup against us.”
In an interview that day, he said his critical views on the U.S. government are based on the relationship between Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire, political provocateur, and major campaign donor, and cryptocurrencies. He said it was formed through research.
Azzarello said he moved from Washington Square Park because he thought the cold weather would cause more people to be outside the courthouse.
“President Trump is working on that, too,” Azzarello said Thursday. “This is covert kleptocracy and will only lead to an apocalyptic fascist coup.”
Police said Azzarello arrived in New York City after April 13, but his family in St. Augustine did not know his whereabouts until after the incident. Mr. Azzarello was recently in Florida, but has ties to the New York City area and worked for U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi during his 2013 campaign for executive office in Nassau County, Long Island.
A man believed to be a relative of Mr. Azzarello at the Brooklyn address declined to comment Thursday.
But over the past year, Mr. Azzarello's behavior has seemed more erratic. He was arrested three times in Florida for misdemeanors in 2023 and posted online that he had just spent three days in a psychiatric hospital in August.
Later that month, while dining at the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine, he threw a glass of wine at a framed autograph of former President Bill Clinton. Two days later, on August 21, he reappeared at the hotel, wearing only his underwear, playing music from the speakers and shouting profanities at the guests.
Three days later, police arrested him on suspicion of defacing and destroying signs at several businesses. He removed a pest control sign from a business' garden warning passersby to keep children and pets away for their own safety. “The pest control company was there to remove the child and the dog,” he said in comments to police.
His mug shot shows Mr. Azzarello sticking out his tongue.
In addition to his website, Azzarello was active on social media, promoting anti-government literature on Instagram. Most of his online posts through spring 2022 were about his travels and his family, including mentioning that his mother passed away in April 2022 from complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
About a year later, he posted a photo of what appeared to be a coronavirus vaccination card defaced with the word “Super Ponzi” and the Bitcoin symbol.
People who witnessed the fire said they watched in disbelief as Azzarello, who was in an area designated for Trump supporters in the park, threw a pamphlet into the air and watched as flames shot skyward. Azzarello, who was wearing jeans and a dark gray T-shirt, fell to the ground amidst the fire.
Some of the pamphlets called New York University a “front for the mob,” and others about former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Al Gore, and Gore's representatives during the 2000 presidential recount. Some also mentioned the lawyer who served on the case, David Boies. Other pamphlets contained anti-government conspiracy theories, but they did not have a clear political orientation.
Most of the officers who responded to Thursday's fire fled in the direction of the courthouse, which was hundreds of feet away across the street. There were steel barricades in the park, and some people had trouble reaching Mr. Azzarello immediately.
Al Baker, a court system spokesman, said one court employee was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, but the trial schedule was not affected.
Fred Gates, 60, said he was riding his bike through the park when he stopped to watch Trump supporters and saw Azzarello try to start a fire. Gates thought it was a prank or a performance until he saw the flames, he said.
Another witness, civil rights attorney Gideon Oliver, said he saw smoke billowing from the park and court officials rushing out of the building with fire extinguishers.
“When I saw and smelled the smoke, I thought someone, who I thought was one of the pro-Trump protesters, had started a fire in the park,” Oliver said. “I saw police officers and court staff running and thought it might have been a bomb.”
Mr. Azzarello poured himself an accelerant and stood tall, holding the flame at chest level. As those closest to him ran away, others screamed as they realized what he was about to do.
The flames consumed him and he slowly collapsed.
wesley parnell, Alan Feuer, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Jean Ransom, maria kramer, Stefanos Chen, Nicholas Fandos and dana rubinstein Contributed to the report.