In November, another of these horrific train-riding stories broke. Where an innocent person is just going about their business, trying to get home from work or whatever, and a monster strolls onto their car.
Who then randomly picks them as the target for some unimaginable act of inhuman cruelty.
The sleeping lady burned alive in a New York subway car, lovely young emigre Iryna Zarutska in a Charlotte rapid transit, another near-fatal stabbing on the same rail line at the beginning of this month...one grisly, ghastly litany of horror after another, all perpetrated by one of two things - an illegal alien or a homegrown, repeat violent offender - neither of which should have been freely roaming the streets to inflict this pain and suffering on anyone.
I guess I should add a truly guilty third offender - the judges who release them time and again.
That's the case here for another attack that both John and David covered when it happened.
On the 18th of November, a 24-year-old honors student was riding Chicago's 'L' train when a man named Lawrence Reed doused her with gasoline, clicked a lighter, and set her on fire.
A person of interest was taken into custody after a 26-year-old woman was set on fire while riding a busy Chicago Transit Authority train in the city's popular Loop, police said.
Police did not offer additional information on the person of interest, but noted an investigation into the case "remains ongoing."
The 26-year-old was riding a Blue Line train just before 9:30 p.m. Monday when police said she got into an argument with a man believed to be about 45 years old.
The man ultimately poured liquid on the woman and ignited it, setting her on fire, authorities said.
The train came to a stop at the Clark and Lake stop and the man fled the scene as the woman stumbled out of the car and collapsed.
She was taken by the Chicago Fire Department to a nearby hospital with "severe burns about the body." She was last listed in critical condition.
She had apparently tried to get away from the lunatic, but he caught up with her. I cannot imagine how terrified that poor young girl was.
...The train firebug was sitting in the back of a Chicago Blue Line L car when he approached the woman, later identified as “soft spoken” Bethany MaGee, who had her back to him — and then poured gasoline from a plastic bottle on her head and body, according to an arrest affidavit.
MaGee fought off the attacker, running from one end of the car to another — until Reed allegedly then ignited the bottle, setting Magee on fire, according to the affidavit.
She was engulfed in flames but somehow managed to hop off the train, collapsing on the platform where good Samaritans helped her.
She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, suffering burns on more than 60% of her body.
Mother of God.
AND NOT ONE PERSON HELPED HER FEND HIM OFF
Reed would never have had the opportunity to finish filling up his little bottle of petrol and step onto that train had the judges in Chicago done what they were supposed to do, as opposed to what Soros's money dictates they do.
Authorities at the court were repeatedly alerted that Reed was leaving home despite having an ankle monitor on, and they took no action to bring him in.
The man accused of setting a woman on fire aboard a Blue Line train this week repeatedly violated his electronic monitoring program by leaving his home without permission for extended periods, CWBChicago has learned. And, records show, when Lawrence Reed randomly poured gasoline on the 26-year-old woman and set her ablaze on Monday night, he had been out of his home without permission for more than 12 hours.
Despite repeated, sometimes lengthy violations, he was never apprehended by personnel from the office of Chief Judge Timothy Evans, who are responsible for operating the program. A spokesperson for the office declined to comment on what efforts, if any, were taken to locate Reed, saying “This information would likely also be protected as part of the pretrial record, so we would not release it without the defendant’s express permission.”
He was only on that ankle monitor because a wise Latina judge, Cook County Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez, blithely blew off the prosecutor's pleas begging her to keep Reed in jail after he assaulted a social worker. Reed, the prosecutor worried, was capable of a violent, spontaneous attack at any time, and an ankle bracelet would protect no one from him. The judge airily dismissed the concerns.
“I can’t keep everybody in jail because the State’s Attorney wants me to.”
And if you wonder where the 'wise Latina' came from, just get a load of this woman. She pours the smug, woke progressive on.
🚨 JUST IN: The same judge who let free known criminal Lawrence Reed to set a Chicago woman on FIRE is being exposed for supporting DEI and ruling based on SKIN COLOR.
— Roy Rogue (@rogue185263) November 28, 2025
HOLD JUDGE GONZALEZ ACCOUNTABLE!
Enough is enough. At least 72 prior arrests! pic.twitter.com/PPSoeM0BX8
Now it turns out that the Bear of Little Brains, for all that he asserts the attack on Miss MaGee was 'an isolated incident' as he builds the 'safest, most affordable big city in America,' had his own sort of run-in with this felonious maniac's gasoline bottle and lighter.
Lawrence Reed had been arrested for trying to burn down Chicago's City Hall just days before he turned his attention to easier prey on Brandon Johnson's railway cars.
What a great town, no? It's like you can do damn near anything you want.
Maniac repeat offender accused of setting Chicago train rider on fire now charged with trying to torch City Hall
The deranged career criminal charged with setting a woman on fire on a Chicago train last month has been indicted on an additional charge for allegedly trying to torch City Hall just days earlier.
Lawrence Reed, 50, “maliciously damaged and attempted to damage and destroy” Chicago’s City Hall building on Nov. 14, prosecutors alleged in court records released Thursday.
Thankfully, the fire did not spread beyond the initial flames and did not cause damage, Mayor Brandon Johnson has said.
...He was out on pretrial release at the time of the attack after allegedly knocking a psychiatric hospital worker out cold in August. Prosecutors had requested Reed remain locked up, but a judge overruled them — leaving him free to roam the streets.
He was busted 72 times in Cook County alone and convicted in 15 of those cases, federal prosecutors said.
One of those busts included an aggravated arson charge, in which he was accused of dousing the city’s Thompson Center government building with liquid and setting it on fire just before Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was due to give remarks at a press conference.
I guess they're finally mad about the City Hall thing. City property affects the mayor personally, you know.
Maniac repeat offender accused of setting Chicago train rider on fire now charged with trying to torch City Hall https://t.co/GGBzBSVR9V pic.twitter.com/pGUtoHA6rG
— New York Post (@nypost) December 19, 2025
As for Bear of Little Brains claiming the attack was an 'isolated incident' on Chicago trains, not really. Those flames were simply a less employed form of violence from the well-populated repeat offender Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) crowd.
A woman with a significant history of attacking people on the CTA is accused of battering four more victims in the Loop this week, some with a bottle, less than 24 hours after she walked out of jail for attacking other riders.
A 52-year-old suburban man accused of setting his own belongings and himself on fire inside a CTA train car in Wicker Park is now facing felony arson charges, authorities said Sunday.
Parolee who busted tourist’s nose on Loop CTA platform now charged with ‘brutal’ attack and robbery on downtown train
A 23-year-old Calumet City resident who has been arrested six times in Chicago this year, including multiple times on the CTA, is accused of sexually assaulting a disabled woman after pushing her out of her wheelchair at a downtown Red Line station.
I mean, I can do this all day for December, alone, and the month's not even over yet.
The feds aren't falling for the 'CTA plan in the tailpipe,' either. The Transportation Department threw Chicago's upgraded security plans back in the city's lap and said, 'Get it fixed or no dollars for you.'
Can you imagine? The Federal Transit Administrator called a Chicago plan a 'miserable failure.' Whoda thunk?
...Less than 15 hours after CTA officials announced a plan to put dozens of additional Chicago cops and private canine security teams on the city’s bus and rail lines, the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday threatened to withhold federal funding if the agency does not come up with a “more aggressive crime reduction” plan.
Friday’s letter from the Federal Transit Administration directs the CTA to craft a new “Security Enhancement Plan” with what it called more aggressive crime reduction targets and stronger countermeasures. If CTA does not comply within 90 days, the FTA said it will withhold up to $50 million in Urbanized Area Formula funds — roughly 25% of the money allotted to the agency.
FTA first issued a special safety directive to CTA on December 8 after a 26-year-old woman was set on fire aboard a Blue Line train by Lawrence Reed, a man who had been arrested 72 times and was supposed to be home on electronic monitoring.
In the letter, Federal Transit Administrator Marc Molinaro said his agency received the CTA’s plan on Monday and has determined it falls short of what is required. He called the city’s transit system unsafe for riders and employees and accused city and state leaders of failing to correct the trend as violent incidents neared a decade high.
“This ‘plan’ fails to measurably reduce incidents of assaults and improve overall safety on buses and trains. If people’s safety is at risk, so are federal funds. CTA must act to save lives and improve safety,” he said.
And Hizzoner's already under some pressure right now.
DIS GUY is God-awful with money.
Mayor Brandon Johnson warned Monday morning that Chicago was headed for its first-ever government shutdown after a marathon weekend meeting failed to break the budget deadlock gripping the city.
In a letter to the 26 members of the Chicago City Council who have signed on to a plan to bridge Chicago’s $1.19 billion budget gap without hiking taxes on large firms, Johnson said he was open to new ideas and continuing negotiations but said he would not allow the city’s budget to be balanced “on the backs of working people.”
“These proposals by some members of the Council are not ‘shared sacrifice’; it is only the poor who are sharing the sacrifice,” Johnson wrote. “Doubling garbage fees, cutting youth employment, and selling Chicagoans’ debt to the highest bidder puts significant additional financial strain on those with the least ability to afford it.”
A situation so cataclysmic is only going to scramble the three pathetic brain cells Johnson has, maybe to the point of irreparably damaging them. If you thought he was a blithering tool before, stand by - this could be the most amazing meltdown ever.
If you don't have to go to Chicago, maybe don't for a while, hmm?
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