Two people were arrested, including a parolee with a criminal record that includes 131 prior arrests in New York City, for setting a homeless man on fire as he slept at Penn Station, police said Wednesday.
Damon Johnson, 47, was arrested Tuesday by officers with the Amtrak Police Department and charged with attempted murder and assault for the attack on Monday that left a 37-year-old man with second-degree burns on his arm and back, according to law enforcement.
And on Wednesday, Amtrak police nabbed 33-year-old Lyla Najjar, who is charged with assault for the attack, said police.
The victim was dozing near a W. 33rd St. entrance to Penn Station’s Amtrak rotunda near Eighth Ave. when three people approached him, one of them setting fire to the man’s clothes around 8:30 p.m., cops said.
Video posted online shows the victim on his feet, with flames spreading across his arm, trying to fend off his attackers as they throw him to the ground. The victim can be seen struggling to remove his burning sweatshirt, the video shows.
First responders quickly put out the flames and rushed the victim to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell’s burn unit.
After the attack, the three men fled into the station.
Johnson, who is currently on parole for robbery until 2027, has an extensive criminal record that includes a whopping 131 arrests since he was first busted for a Bronx assault in 1995, cops said.
His most recent bust prior to Tuesday’s arrest was for an assault on Sept. 9, 2024, in which he punched and slapped a 56-year-old woman in the face during an argument on E. Tremont Ave. and Grand Concourse in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx.
Najjar has five prior arrests, most recently for contempt of court on Feb. 28, cops said.
The arson at Penn Station comes as Mayor Mamdani’s Department of Homeless Services faces increased scrutiny after at least 19 New Yorkers died on the streets amid a recent cold snap, 15 of whom succumbed to hypothermia. The majority of those who died had some contact with Homeless Services over the course of their lives, according to the city.