Man sets himself on fire in Washington D.C.

Source

Courtesy of Politico:  

A man set himself on fire on the National Mall in the nation's capital as passers-by rushed over to help douse the flames, officials and witnesses said Friday afternoon. 

The reason for the self-immolation was not immediately clear and the man's identity was not disclosed. But it occurred in public view, on a central national gathering place, in a city still rattled by a mass shooting last month and a high-speed car chase outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday that ended with a woman being shot dead by police. 

The man on the Mall suffered life-threatening injuries and was airlifted to the hospital, said District of Columbia fire department spokesman Tim Wilson. 

He was standing by himself in the center portion of the Mall when he emptied the contents of a red gasoline can on himself and set himself on fire moments later, said Katy Scheflen, who witnessed it as she walked across the area. Police say they responded around 4:20 p.m. Friday. 

Scheflen said passing joggers took off their shirts in an effort to help douse the flames, and the man was clearly alive as the fire spread. A police department spokesman said he was conscious and breathing at the scene. MedStar Washington Hospital Center tweeted that the man was taken there but had no condition update.

 "There was not a lot people could do because it was a gasoline fire," Scheflen said. 

She said he may have said something before he acted "but it was nothing intelligible." She said she did not see him holding any signs before he set himself ablaze and that there was another man with a tripod set up near him but did not mention if he was filming. 

Now I am unwilling to jump to conclusions concerning this horrific  incident, but I WILL say that it is troubling that it happens right on the heels of that poor woman being shot by Capitol police.

Whether or not either one of these incidents was politically motivated remains unclear, but I am not sure how surprised I would be to see other examples of similar incidents happening in the weeks to come.

If you are like me reports of this incident immediately brought up images of the famous incident in 1963 where Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, immolated himself in protest of the mistreatment of Buddhist monks by the South Vietnamese.

Like I said I am not willing to jump to any uninformed conclusions right now but I think this is something that we need to know about and  have in the back of our minds in case there are other such unexplainable incidents in the future.