Man identified by police as Max Azzarello, from Florida, declared dead after incident outside lower Manhattan courthouse
A man has died after setting himself on fire outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush-money trial is taking place.
The New York City police department said on Saturday the man had been declared dead by staff at an area hospital.
Officials had said earlier the man, who was in his late 30s, was in critical condition.
The New York police department said the man, who they identified as Max Azzarello of St Augustine, Florida, did not appear to be targeting Trump or others involved in the trial.
Witnesses said the man pulled pamphlets out of a backpack and threw them in the air before he doused himself with a liquid and set himself on fire on Friday. One of those pamphlets included references to “evil billionaires” but portions that were visible to a Reuters witness did not mention Trump.
I dunno, I kind of remain pretty skeptical of that being the case. For just as much as I’ve seen that mental health concerns are getting de-stigmatized, I’ve, in almost equal measure, seen all manner of people throwing around terms with absolutely no meaning, taking identification in certain terms without really understanding or elaborating a clear case for their use. I’ve also seen just as many people call, say, someone who sets themselves on fire “insane”, and effectively use various mental health stuff as a thought-terminating cliche, as a kind of offhanded dismissal of anything that makes them feel bad, or they don’t like. Just mechanisms by which they can slot people into boxes and promptly file them away to be forgotten.
So I dunno, I beware the idea that it’s just gonna get swept up, like everything else, into like, middle class liberal self-help bullshit.