“I can’t keep everybody in jail because the State’s Attorney wants me to.” Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez told the state attorney in a hearing in late August, CWB Chicago reported from a court transcript it obtained.
Federal authorities this week charged Lawrence Reed, 50, with filling up a bottle with gasoline at a Chicago filling station, boarding the Chicago’s Blue Line train 20 minutes later, dousing the young woman with the fuel and lighting her on fire in the evening hours of November 17.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros told a news conference the attack was unprovoked and random.
The woman, who has not been publicly identified, remains in critical condition at a burn unit in a Cook County’s Stroger Hospital in the Windy City.
Reed, who has an extensive criminal history with 50 arrests and multiple felony convictions over the past three decades, was placed by the judge on an ankle monitor on an aggravated battery charge in late August. In that case he’d allegedly hit a social worker at a Chicago area psychiatric hospital.
Assistant State’s Attorney Jerrilyn Gumila told Judge Molina-Gonzalez on August 22:
The defendant randomly and spontaneously became irate in this situation where the victim was just attempting to do her job as a social worker, and now as a result, suffered injuries so severe that she still has side effects on a daily basis.
There is nothing here indicating that the defendant was provoked, this was a random act, your Honor, and electronic monitoring would be wholly insufficient. It could not protect the victim or the community from another vicious, random, and spontaneous attack.
When Reed approached the young woman in the fire attack this week he allegedly yelled “burn alive bitch,” according to the criminal affidavit filed in federal court. She initially fled inside the car. According to a CBS report:
Reed then picked up the bottle, which was now on fire, the affidavit said. He approached the victim, set her on fire using the bottle, and stood and watched as he body was engulfed in flames, the affidavit said.
The woman, who was almost fully engulfed in flames, tried to put out the fire by rolling on the floor of the train car, the affidavit said. When the train stopped at Clark/Lake, the woman was still on fire. The woman exited the train at the station and collapsed on the platform.
The fact the assault took place on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) rail system allowed the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago to charge Reed with a federal domestic terrorism offense.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, though condemning the attack, also called it an “isolated incident,” noting that one million people rely on the CTA every day.
However, previous reports show that there have been violent attacks before on the transit system, including the fatal shooting of four passengers in 2024 and a fatal stabbing in June as well as ongoing petty criminal activity.
According a study by the Illinois Policy Institute, Chicago faces roughly one crime every three hours on the CTA, with residents reporting 1,356 crimes in a one year period ending in September of last year.
The senseless fiery assault this week has drawn comparisons to the killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a commuter train in Charlotte, North Carolina in late August.
In both cases, each suspect built up a long rap sheet going back years.
The fire victim’s family released a statement late Thursday evening thanking the public for prayers and well wishes and praising the burn team at Chicago’s Stroger Hospital, but they did not provide any updates on the woman’s condition.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true-crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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