1y ago

Man dies after setting himself on fire outside Trump trial courthouse

www.theguardian.com

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.

98 comments

Another case for, at a minimum, universal mental health care.
- I don't think you can advocate for universal mental health care without universal health care. Mental health care is health care.
  There's a reason where I am that a mental health clinician is part of the cancer team. Having just the therapy aspect covered would do nothing for people unable to treat their physical illnesses.
  Promoting better accessibility of mental health care is reasonable- even places with universal coverage mental health lags behind. The tricky thing is that some people will refuse to access care even if its available. Its more visible in cases like this but happens all the time with other chronic illnesses like COPD and diabetes where it gets out of control and the person succumbs quietly.
  I don't know where I'm going with this. I wish he had sought help and I wish that help was available. I'm glad no one else lost their lives in this case.
  
  Well, that's why I say "at a minimum". Once everyone has universal mental health care, then maybe we can get the real deal...
  
  It seems to me, at least in suburban middle class liberal millennial circles, that mental healthcare is getting a lot more destigmatized.
  I hope this anecdote is part of an actual trend, and it expands to other demographics.
  
  Agreed. Treating mental health separately from health makes about as much sense as requiring different health insurance for teeth as well as eyes.
- While I do think that we do need universal mental health care (and universal health care in general), I'm not sure it would have helped in this situation. The thing about mental health care is that you can't force it on anyone, they have to want it themselves. He had friends who tried to get him help but he wouldn't take it, and there's only so much that can be done if he refuses. It's like the old saying you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
- "so you're saying we need a fire suppressant grenade launcher? we'll get right on it."
  
  A firefighting low-power 40mm grenade would actually be a dope idea, though I don't know how effective it would be. There's been attempts at similar "grenade" type extinguishers you toss.
  
  Ill call Raytheon, see if we can get the unit price below 1 mil.
- You think better access to psychological care won't reduce instances of self-immolation?
I feel bad for this guy. I mean, he felt passionate enough about his cause to feel that the only way to draw attention to it was to self-immolate. But his cause is.... what, exactly? I've read a few articles and couldn't really figure it out.
It seems to me he was a bright guy who believed what he read on the Internet, and when his mother passed he lost any moderating influence in his life, so that he had no one to pull him out of the conspiracy theories. It was the lack of critical thinking that killed him in the end.
- His manifesto is at https://theponzipapers.substack.com/p/i-have-set-myself-on-fire-outside
  He was clearly mentally ill.
  
  I was skeptical of the mental illness angle until I clicked on the link. This guy was deeply into conspiracy theories.
  
  Lastly, we string these major discoveries together: Cryptocurrency is an economic doomsday device; our government is a secret kleptocracy; The Simpsons exists to brainwash us.
  
  I mean, a lot of what crypto has become is pretty Ponzi-ish. But yeah, he’s a bit deeper off the conspiracy cliff than that.
  
  When we piece it all together, we understand the truth: **We are in a totalitarian doomsday cult. **
  Why on earth would our elites do this? There are many reasons, but the simplest is because capitalism is unsustainable, and they knew it: Climate change and resource extraction would catch up eventually. So, they never intended to sustain it. They knew all along that they would gobble up all the wealth they could, and then yank the rug out from under us so they could pivot to a hellish fascist dystopia.
  Yeah I too think he was likely mentally ill. But damn if this didn’t resonate.
- It should be noted that for-profit media companies will play dumb on any protest critical of the types of people that own and run for-profit media companies.
  During the "occupy" protests, it was common to see reporters staring into the camera and asking "but what are these protests about?" in front signs stating exactly what the protests were about. They knew if they fairly reported on the movement, their audience might start agreeing with the protesters. So both "left wing" and "right wing" media companies held hands and united to undermine it.
  But without that reporting, fuck knows. If he's posting on reddit conspiracy subs, they've become a place for extremists to recruit the stupid and the clinically paranoid.
  
  Whatever society might look like on the other side of beating the billionaires, for-profit news surely won't be a part of it.
  
  This. It’s hard to not realize what this guy was protesting about, we all feel it but the media wants us to buy a new iphone to be happy instead.
- His Instagram tells a really sad story. He was an infrequent poster of perfectly ordinary content. No sign of any mental illness: pictures of his sisters wedding, some jokes, nothing concerning.
  Then, some posts about the death of his mother and almost right after, his sharp decline in mental health becomes apparent.
  
  He was apparently active on Reddit and posted semi-often in the /r/conspiracy subreddit
- TL;DR: The guy is a nutter.
  
  These claims sound like fantastical conspiracy theory, but they are not. They are proof of conspiracy
  That's not how claims work, buddy.
  Lastly, we string these major discoveries together: Cryptocurrency is an economic doomsday device; our government is a secret kleptocracy; The Simpsons exists to brainwash us. From there, the only research we need is critical thinking and we’re able to piece together the true story of our circumstances.
  Wait, I thought we were supposed to use that all throughout, not at the very end!?
  TL;DR Yeah, the guy clearly had a screw loose. Jumping from unfounded (conspiracy) theory to another. At least he was not a Nazi, I guess - he hated everyone equally.
  everyone being "the government", "Crypo-anything", even a few billionaires!
Lesson of the day: don't self immolate. The most you'll get from your opponents and sympathizers are shrugs.
- Yeah if you really wanted to send a message, you'd set those evil billionaires on fire not yourself.
- Or just "Don't kill yourself." Unless maybe you're about to be tortured into revealing secrets that could get innocent people harmed and you have a cyanide pill. Otherwise, suicide is pretty much always going to be too much medicine for the sickness. Things are bad? Killing yourself guarantees they will never get better.
  I realize it's easy to simply say this, but it's still true...
  
  I think I understand the sentiment here, but you are assuming no matter how bad it is, the state a person is living in is inherently better than death. I think you'd find a lot of people can imagine a life worse than death. Death means everything is over, blank, no more consciousness. That sounds better than unhappy life to me, and it definitely sounds better than miserable life.
- Azzarello: You'll pay for this, with your kleptocrats' blood!
  Establishment: Oh right, how you gonna get em, skeleton power?
- For law enforcement maybe they shouldn't rescue after a certain amount of time 😔? Like that was 2 minutes. Maybe cut off at 1 minute? I don't know, it sounds so painful. One of my family members was burnt accidentally by hot liquid and those years of pain and suffering are a mark in my life and obviously in their life. Imagine 100C vs 800 to 1200C in a fire, and instead of just a single burn, continuous burn for minutes? 😞 And to survive that to live one more entire day in possible the most painful way possible.
  
  Cops are not doctors and not individuals I would want making that kind of call
  
  I imagine your nerves die off after a certain moment. That said, I've willingly burned myself enough that I can only imagine the intense body pain as it happens. I'd also imagine your lungs feel like they're also on fire during it, smoke inhalation sucks.
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.
It took The Guardian four paragraphs to get to that. This is why Trump's people are going to turn this guy into a martyr. Because the media isn't making it clear enough that this had nothing to do with Trump.
- Sounds like, on limited info, he went where he knew cameras would be.
- "did not appear to be targeting Trump"...."A pamphlet angry at evil billionaires"
  I could see Trump being triggered that the guy coming to protest rich people was not there for him.
  
  Yeah the media is trying to silence this man’s message, a lot of the national news won’t even bring up his immolation. Even the locals have dialed back mentioning anything about his message, only saying “he did not breech the perimeter of security” about the event. He died to bring an important message, it feels wrong to bury it. If it is crazy, let the people decide for themselves: https://theponzipapers.substack.com/p/i-have-set-myself-on-fire-outside
Paranoid Schizophrenia is a hell of a thing.
I have always said that setting yourself on fire is bad for your health, and this just proves my point.
- Give a man a fire and keep him warm for a night; set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
Sad to hear this person died.
Have to say, seems like being in the state of mind that you're willing to kill yourself because of a given cause doesn't often overlap with having the media savvy to capitalize on such a drastic action.
Maybe we'll find out more, and it will have more of an impact. But just thinking about how before Aaron Bushnell someone else had apparently self immolated, but I don't know their name or specifically what the reason was. I only know because articles about Bushnell mentioned it in passing. And even for Bushnell imagine if someone had messed with his phone or even accidentally blocked the image? Without that visual spreading online it would just be another blip in the news cycle.
Florida isn't sending us their best
- Plot twist...he was their best.
  
  Yeah, I think I could have had a beer with this guy (after securing the sharp objects flammables and firearms)
So what was on the pamphlets?
- Basically a manifesto asserting that everyone with power is colluding to mount a fascist coup d’état on America; Bush v Gore was a fake double team to get Bush the presidency, The Simpsons is some kind of propaganda meant to dupe us into being slovenly dopes forced into doing the bidding of billionaire overlords, um, I think there was some accusations levied against the Epstein victims for being pawns of some greater scheme, et cetera and whatever. Oh, also a crypto Ponzi scheme.
  From the limited info I heard, he was a normal, decent guy, but he had some kind of psychotic break a couple of years ago after his mom died; that said, if anyone has more/better information, please feel free to correct me.
  
  psychotic break a couple of years ago after his mom died
  Went from "weird" to "sad and tragic" pretty quick. Honestly, it makes me worried about my own mental health in a big way should I face a similar kind of tragedy.
- I’m not sure but he had a few printable pamphlets with wild shit on his substack:
  https://theponzipapers.substack.com/p/i-have-set-myself-on-fire-outside
  
  Thanks. So this guy thinks that crypto is the global ponzi scheme, not the gazillion dollar fiat debt?
This is honestly just sad. If you know someone who is falling down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and increasingly radicalizing, get them help. Seriously.
What an awful, yet unfortunately expected, end to his story. Hopefully people on the fringe see this as the cautionary tale that it is and try backing away from extremist social media. Otherwise we're going to see more people doing more drastic things.
- It's unlikely that people who are already down the conspiracy rabbit hole will see this as anything other than another bad thing to weave into their web of other things that the grand mysterious them is doing to us.
Well, he won’t be making that mistake again, I can guarantee you that.
Poor guy thought lighting himself on fire at something to do with Trump wouldn't make everyone think it's about Trump.
He had a bunch of flyers that he threw in the air before setting himself on fire outside a Trump trial, but unfortunately none of them mentioned Trump. Maybe something about billionaires which is kinda Trumpy, but we won't actually show you any of them because we're here for Trump. Anyhow, Trump Trump Trump
- He literally mentions that Trump is the same as Hilary and other presidents and candidates. It was about the ruling class, you should probably read it https://theponzipapers.substack.com/p/i-have-set-myself-on-fire-outside
  
  Wow, great find. Poor guy.
Natural selection at work.
- That's not what happened
Trump Derangement Syndrome?
- Nope. How about spending 5 minutes to read literally anything and learn this guy wasn’t a Biden or a Trump supporter.
  
  Conservatives can read?
  
  I never said he was a Biden or Trump supporter. He was ranting against Trump, who is not president.
- Just severe mental illness. Conspiracy theories and stuff
- just a guy who tried to jump into the eye of the current spectacle.

98 comments