(Headline USA) A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s business documents trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
According to a manifesto published on Substack, the individual’s name was Max Azzarello.
His rambling explanation appeared to suggest that it was more connected with the impending Bitcoin halving than with Trump or anything explicitly political in nature.
“We are victims of a totalitarian con, and our own government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup,” he wrote before promoting several conspiracy theories about cryptocurrencies and Ponzi schemes that made wild accusations against former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and referenced several episodes of The Simpsons as supporting evidence.
Azzarello’s Instagram includes similar references.
He said that his wormhole began after a March 2023 bank run instigated by billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
That prompted Azzarello to do 1,500 hours of research, which led him to uncover “the secrets of the world.”
Headline USA reached out to Thiel via email for comment and will update with any response.
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In one post, Azzarello pays tribute to his mother, who passed away in 2022.
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The fire was extinguished Friday shortly after a jury and alternates had been seated in Trump’s criminal case. A person could be seen lying on the ground on fire.
People then rushed over to douse the person with a fire extinguisher and try to bat the flames away. Emergency responders then rushed the person away on a stretcher.
The fire happened in a park across the street from the courthouse that has been a gathering point for protesters and media outlets covering jury selection for Trump’s trial.
A full jury of 12 people and six alternates had been seated in Trump’s hush money case just minutes earlier, drawing the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president a step closer to opening statements.
Lawyers spent days quizzing dozens of New Yorkers to choose the panel that has vowed to put their personal views aside and impartially judge whether the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is guilty or not. The jury includes a sales professional, a software engineer, an English teacher and multiple lawyers.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
