Look, we all know that with rare exceptions (Donald Trump, for instance), politicians don’t write their own posts/tweets on X (the former Twitter).

Which is why what happened on Sunday to Governor Kathy Hochul of New York absolutely inevitable. You see, the governor, after vowing to clean up New York during her gubernatorial campaign, was bragging on how much safer the subways of New York City are thanks to all her hard work.

In March, I took action to make our subways safer for the millions of people who take the trains each day.  

Since deploying the @NationalGuardNY to support @NYPDnews and @MTA safety efforts and adding cameras to all subway cars, crime is going down, and ridership is going up. pic.twitter.com/T7uRxx9nIO

— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) December 22, 2024

That post has now gotten its own Community Note, after a horrific murder on the subway on the SAME DAY that the governor’s account sent out this likely pre-scheduled tweet. The details are absolutely awful, and you’ll never EVER guess who has now been arrested for the crime!

A Guatemalan migrant has been arrested for allegedly lighting a sleeping subway rider on fire in Brooklyn on Sunday morning — then watching as his innocent victim burned to death in what the police commissioner called “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit.”

The savage killing — which happened at about 7:30 a.m. on an idling F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station — shocked commuters, MTA workers and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who said Sunday that the heinous crime “took the life of an innocent New Yorker.”

“As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked up to the victim, who was in a seated position at the end of a subway car … and used what we believe to be a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,” Tisch said at a press conference.

Patrolling cops smelled and saw the smoke, then followed it to the flame-covered woman, the commissioner said.

They extinguished the blaze, but the victim died at the scene.

Officials said the 33-year-old suspect came to the US in 2018 from Guatemala. His legal status wasn’t immediately clear Sunday night.

Now, note the time of the murder – 7:30 am on Sunday morning. And then look at the tweet’s time stamp, keeping in mind that it reflects the time zone that you are personally in. That’s right! The governor’s X account sent out that post at 3:40 pm Eastern Time on Sunday. Did NO Hochul staffer stop and think, “Oh, we should probably cancel that tweet that’s scheduled. This is bad and will surely be noticed.” NOPE!

Of all days to post this bullshit, it’s the day a woman was set on fire while sleeping on the subway!

If you had any dignity, you wouldn’t run for re-election.

— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) December 22, 2024

Hochul and her staff tried to salvage the situation on her X account. They didn’t delete the post, but put out another one – almost two hours later, at 5:36 pm Eastern.

Make no mistake: any crime is one too many, even with subway crime going down.

We are continuing to surge personnel and resources to make our subways safer.

— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) December 22, 2024

But it wasn’t like this murder was the ONLY death this weekend on the New York subways. Does anyone really think that things are safer now, just because there are cameras everywhere?

One man is dead, and another one was injured after a stabbing incident at a Queens subway station on Sunday, police said.

Police responded to a 911 call just after midnight at the 61st Street-Woodside station in Woodside. The incident happened on the southbound 7 platform.

When the police arrived, they found a 37-year-old man stabbed to the torso and a 26-year-old slashed to the body.

Police said the 26-year-old is in stable condition and the 37-year-old man died at the hospital.

One person who is definitely not buying the spin from Hochul and her administration is Congressman Ritchie Torres. A fellow Democrat, Torres has become a staunch voice against crime, and has taken hard stands against anti-Semitism since October 7th. Kathy Hochul should be afraid of his political trajectory, and for good reason. Shortly before Hochul sent out the tweet about the suspect in custody, Torres blasted her on X himself.

Two hours ago, Kathy Hochul took a victory lap for making subways “safer.” She congratulates herself on the same day two subway riders were stabbed in Queens (one in the face and one in the chest) and another was barbarically burned alive.

Has there ever been a more tone-deaf… pic.twitter.com/KIPujqpKa3

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) December 22, 2024

The post reads in full:

Two hours ago, Kathy Hochul took a victory lap for making subways “safer.” She congratulates herself on the same day two subway riders were stabbed in Queens (one in the face and one in the chest) and another was barbarically burned alive.

Has there ever been a more tone-deaf Governor in the history of New York?

But the truly terrible part about this entire situation is that, in the case of the woman burned to death – while her alleged assailant sat and watched – was the detail included by the New York Post as this woman was burning.

Horrifying video obtained by The Post showed the suspect calmly looking on as flames consumed the still-unidentified woman, who stood inside the open subway car door.

A transit cop walked by, and seemed to pull out a radio and say something as they continued down the platform.

After the cop passed, the suspect got up as if to walk away — then the clip cut off.

In another video, cops yelled to the gathered crowd, “Did anybody see anything? Did anybody see anything?” as smoke poured from inside the subway car.

The suspect brazenly sat on a nearby bench as cops huddled around, pulling his hood up at one point just before an officer spoke to him.

“Do me a favor? Walk down there,” the cop said, motioning down the platform with his radio. “I need this space cleared up.”

The man stood up, then left the scene.

The bodycam video images allowed police to get clear photos of the suspect, but that isn’t the terrible detail. The transit cop is the terrible detail. He kept walking. He didn’t stop to investigate, or help, or anything. The subway car was on fire, a woman was burning to death, and no bystanders stepped in to help her, and the transit cop KEPT WALKING. And the officers who did arrive on the scene, who interacted with the suspect, saw nothing initially wrong with his behavior! Is it now completely normal for people to sit and watch others burn without trying to do something about it? Apparently, in the post-Daniel Penny world that the New York City subways have become, it is. There was no impulse by bystanders to help, and the police did not find it at all suspicious that someone was just watching a woman burn to death. THIS is what New York City has become. Daniel Penny has been exonerated, but he had his entire life turned upside down, and is still dealing with a civil suit from Jordan Neely’s deadbeat biological father. The jury may have found him not guilty, but the lesson that was learned by the New York City public can be distilled down to one thing, and it’s what the transit cop did. Keep walking. Don’t step in. Don’t help a stranger. Don’t draw attention to yourself.

Kathy Hochul may not be totally to blame for her staff’s poorly timed tweet, but she IS completely to blame – along with the rest of the political leadership in New York – for creating this atmosphere of fear of doing the right thing, because it may get you in trouble. And no amount of safety cameras will convince the public that the subways are safe, when no one is willing to help you should things go wrong. After all, if you keep walking, you can’t be charged with anything. New Yorkers are going to have to find the political will to demand change, because these platitudes from people like Governor Hochul will not save anyone when a match is lit and thrown.

Featured image: Governor Kathy Hochul via Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Flickr account, cropped, CC BY 2.0 DEED