The man who set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former President Donald Trump was being tried died a day after the incident.
On Saturday morning, the New York Police Department confirmed to the Associated Press that Max Azzarello, 37, was pronounced dead at an area hospital. He was seen being carried away from the scene Friday on a stretcher, with his whole body charred. He was described by police at a press conference shortly after as being in “very critical” condition.
Azzarello lived in St. Augustine, Florida, and traveled to New York last week. He went to the New York University campus, where he handed out flyers claiming the school was a “mob front.” A Columbia student who encountered him during his stay at the campus described him as “open and friendly.”
“I don’t remember the specifics of what he was saying — I was struggling to follow his theory — but he handed me two pamphlets, which he said could ‘start a revolution’ if people knew about the information contained. I also asked him what he thought of Columbia, which he said was also a mob front,” the student told the Washington Examiner.
Azzarello graduated in 2009 from the University of North Carolina where he received degrees in anthropology and public policy, the New York Times reported. He went on to get a master’s degree in city and regional planning in 2012 from Rutgers University.
The turning point came with the death of his mother in April 2022 — something displayed on his Instagram and confirmed by friends to the New York Times.
“That was around the time when he became more outspoken,” Carol Waldman, the mother of a childhood friend of his, said. “They were close, and they had a good relationship. He was heartbroken.”
Azzarello soon turned to wide-ranging conspiracy theories, writing several pamphlets and manifestos outlining his views. Central to his view was that cryptocurrency was an “economic doomsday device” intended to implement an “apocalyptic global fascist coup.”
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He doused himself in an accelerant on Friday, then lit himself on fire. The fire burned for two to three minutes before being fully doused by emergency responders with fire extinguishers.
The incident was the second major self-immolation in the United States in two months. The first was U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell, who lit himself on fire in protest of the U.S.’s support for Israel during the War in Gaza.
