Chicago man accused of setting train passenger on fire had 72 prior arrests

A Chicago man who allegedly doused a woman in gasoline and lit her on fire on 17 November was a “career criminal”, the White House has said.

Lawrence Reed who was arrested for the crime had 72 prior arrests that include eight felony convictions and seven misdemeanours, according to the White House.

The victim, 26-year-old Bethany MaGee, survived the attack but is “now fighting for her life with horrific burns”, the White house said in a statement.

In court on Monday, Mr Reed yelled three times in succession “I’m guilty”, after the judge warned he could receive a life sentence for charges that include committing a terrorist attack, according to reports from inside the courtroom.

The White House has sought to blame the incident on Democrats’ policies on crime, casting them as “soft”.

Both the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago are led by Democrats, and President Donald Trump is currently seeking to withhold federal funds from Illinois over its elimination of “cash bail”, where an arrested person posts a sum of money to be released from jail before trial.

The suspect “was walking free because of the radical, dangerous ‘no cash bail’ law proudly signed by Governor JB Pritzker and celebrated by Chicago’s defund-the-police Mayor Brandon Johnson”, the White House said in a statement it released on Tuesday.

Mayor Johnson said in a statement that the attack “was a tragic incident, and the Mayor’s prayers are with the victim and her family.”

Mr Reed, 50, has a history of mental illness and has been arrested 72 times since he turned 18, according to a Chicago affiliate of the BBC’s partner CBS News.

In August, he was charged with aggravated battery for allegedly hitting a social worker and after his arrest was released with electronic monitoring against prosecutors’ objections.

The attack against Ms MaGee happened while she was “minding her own business and reading her phone”, prosecutors said.

According to the criminal complaint, she was approached by Mr Reed arriving from the back of the train car who then doused her with gasoline before she ran.

As he chased her, the complaint said, Mr Reed ignited the rest of the liquid in the bottle and set Ms MaGee on fire.

Footage of the incident appeared to show Mr Reed watching Ms MaGee as she rolled on the floor engulfed in flames attempting to extinguish the fire.

Last week, Mayor Johnson said the attack “should have never happened”, characterising it as “an absolute failure of our criminal justice as well as our mental health institutions”.

He said the suspect clearly faced mental health challenges and presented a danger to himself and the community.

As a county commissioner, Johnson in 2020 introduced a nonbinding resolution to redirect funds from police and jails to other public services, but while running for mayor in 2023 he promised not to cut police spending.