{"id":153572,"date":"2026-03-05T07:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/153572\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T07:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:20:12","slug":"2-arrested-after-homeless-man-set-on-fire-inside-penn-station-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/153572\/","title":{"rendered":"2 arrested after homeless man set on fire inside Penn Station, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-block-key=\"81sz9\">Two people have been arrested in connection with an <a href=\"https:\/\/gothamist.com\/news\/nypd-searching-for-3-people-they-say-set-a-homeless-man-on-fire-at-penn-station\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">attack<\/a> in which a homeless man was set on fire inside Penn Station earlier this week, police officials said.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"66p2h\">Amtrak police arrested Damon Johnson, 47, on Tuesday night near West 31st Street and Eighth Avenue, police said. He was charged with attempted murder, assault and reckless endangerment.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"5g3q7\">Authorities said Johnson was among a group that set a 37-year-old man on fire while he slept inside the Amtrak rotunda beneath Madison Square Garden on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"fje8q\">Police said the victim suffered second-degree burns but is in stable condition.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"6ebe8\">Investigators said Johnson has 88 prior arrests, mostly for drug offenses and fare evasion.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"3295g\">A second suspect, Lyla Najjar, 33, was arrested Wednesday morning near West 37th Street and Seventh Avenue and charged with assault, police said.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"gkge\">Police said both were accused of taking part in the attack, though authorities had previously said three people were involved. It was unclear whether investigators were still searching for a third suspect.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"9e8pe\">Attorney information for Johnson and Najjar was not immediately available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two people have been arrested in connection with an attack in which a homeless man was set on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-153572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}