From the species that produced Care Bears

[Pangur Bán]

A woman has been burned alive in the lift of her New York apartment building after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her on fire with a Molotov cocktail, police have said.

The unidentified man, dressed as an exterminator, was waiting for the woman when the lift doors opened to her floor of the Prospect Heights building in Brooklyn. The man sprayed her with an accelerant and set her on fire, New York City police said.

The brutal attack, which happened shortly after 4pm, lasted about a minute and was recorded by two video cameras, including one inside the small lift.

...

Full story on the Guardian

Same story on MSNBC (with pictures)

Unbelievable brutality at one of the centres of modern civilization. Another reminder that much as we idealize humans and continually congratulate ourselves on our mental and moral superiority to the scum in the [rest of the] Animal Kingdom, amongst us are guys who would go out of their way to burn to death little old mentally disabled women in elevators in the middle of the day.

 

[Leoreth]

The fact that there are people like you (and me) who are outraged about this is what makes us not amoral.

 

[Quackers]

I read about this today. It's a crime which deserves all the media hyperbole.
I hope NYC destroy this animal ;p

 

[Maniacal]

Wow, what the hell? Setting people on fire isn't cool, even if you do have a problem with them.

EDIT: Also both of your links are the same.

According to this article he was her ex-boyfriend.

 

[Kyriakos]

:\

Very sad. I cannot even imagine her pain (she died, right?)

(edit: nm........)

Anyway, RIP, and i really hope this was not in vain. Still, horrible, horrible way to die.

 

[Kyriakos]

And this is the suspect, from that link:



As was quoted in some old game: "Diagnosis? Crazy!"

 

[strijder20]

Wow, what the hell? Setting people on fire isn't cool, even if you do have a problem with them.

Uh... That's just asking for a terrible pun... but out of respect for this thread, I won't make it.
This is quite terrible.
I am interested what the motive is, although nothing can justify this.
(Unless that old lady has done this very thing to several other people, but I highly doubt that)

 

[Pangur Bán]

Anyone here ever heard of deinstitutionalization? Bringing "Big Society" to the mentally ill. Roughly translated, this means cutting mental health services for those needing it to save a few dollars, and when not putting the mentally ill in prison, leaving them among the homeless and otherwise inflicting them on the poorer echelons of society. The poor and the mentally ill are, after all, just part of the same thing.

For non-Americans, try walking a US downtown area at night or traveling on a US urban bus ..., you'll see the glories of deinstitutionalization. Reading between the lines, on admittedly still limited info, it's at the heart of this horrific story.

 

[NovaKart]

Wow, I'm in Brooklyn now and this is the first I've heard of it, well it's breaking news.

 

[mangxema]

Thankfully, the dude was too stupid to put his face mask on his face.

 

[Antilogic]

Thankfully, the dude was too stupid to put his face mask on his face.

Yup.

I'll try to avoid an infraction with the profanity I would use to describe him in person, and just shake my head in disbelief one more time.

 

[Rashiminos]

amongst us are guys who would go out of their way to burn to death little old mentally disabled women in elevators in the middle of the day.

May I suppose that some who are amongst "us" are not really of "us?"

 

[Pangur Bán]

May I suppose that some who are amongst "us" are not really of "us?"

They are "us". We need to take responsibility. If the US properly funded care and supervision for the mentallly ill, this would't have happened.

 

[Rashiminos]

They are "us". We need to take responsibility. If the US properly funded care and supervision for the mentallly ill, this would't have happened.

You're presuming we have a cure for what "ails them.*" (or that we should use it if we did).

* This is not to say that there is not treatment for the mentally ill. This is to say that some lack the means (and for them, "mentally ill" is a misnomer) to respond to the treatment on a genuine level instead of a superficial "for your amusement" level.

 

[Pangur Bán]

You're presuming we have a cure for what "ails them." (or that we should use it if we did).

No, but guys like that ... he had mental problems. In European countries he'd have seen so many mental health officials, been under such close care and supervision, that he'd probably have been locked up or at least treated in a way that made doing this to a fellow mentally ill person less likely.

 

[Rashiminos]

No, but guys like that ... he had mental problems. In European countries he'd have seen so many mental health officials, been under such close care and supervision, that he'd probably have been locked up or at least treated in a way that made doing this to a fellow mentally ill person less likely.

Okay, but that leaves the task of identifying them out of a crowd to be locked up and/or contained, if you wish to go that route.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Okay, but that leaves the task of identifying them out of a crowd to be locked up and/or contained, if you wish to go that route.

It's not that hard. The system picks them up in the schooling system, through social work or through the police. But you need to have a system in the first place (throwing disfunctional young men into prisons and traumatized veterans onto the street is not a system!).

 

[Rashiminos]

It's not that hard. The system picks them up in the schooling system, through social work or through the police. But you need to have a system in the first place (throwing disfunctional young men into prisons and traumatized veterans onto the street is not a system!).

The 'system' finds the ones who don't know how to hide very well.

 

[Pangur Bán]

The 'system' finds the ones who don't know how to hide very well.

Which as you know from the pics would have been enough to get this guy.

 

[Rashiminos]

Which as you know from the pics would have been enough to get this guy.

Obviously not.