New York police on Monday were trying to determine why someone set a woman ablaze board a train in Brooklyn in a fatal attack drawing outrage from city and state leaders who have been laboring to make the trains safer.

Police apprehended the man after receiving a report from three high school students who had recognized the man.

New York City police have a person in custody who is suspected to have lit a woman on fire in the subway and then watched from a bench as she became engulfed in flames and died.