A 38-year-old woman was set on fire during a domestic dispute at NYCHA's Kingsborough Houses in Brooklyn, with police sources saying her attacker poured rubbing alcohol on her before igniting it. The attack happened just after 5 p.m. Saturday at 108 1st Kingsborough Walk, leaving the woman with burns to her upper body. No arrest had been made as of Saturday night.
According to News12 Brooklyn, which cited law enforcement sources, the woman was set on fire amid a domestic dispute at the public housing complex. Paramedics rushed her to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where she was listed in stable condition. Police sources told the outlet that the alleged attacker fled the scene after the incident.
Details Of The Attack Still Emerging
Sources close to the investigation said the assailant poured rubbing alcohol on the woman before lighting her on fire, the same report noted. The exact relationship between the woman and the suspect was not immediately known, and investigators had not disclosed what sparked the confrontation. As of Saturday night, no arrests had been made in connection with the attack.
Kingsborough Houses sits in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, with 108 Kingsborough 1st Walk listed among the complex's addresses in NYCHA property records. The development is one of several public housing sites spread across the borough.
A Pattern Of Rising Domestic Violence Cases In Brooklyn
The attack adds to a string of violent domestic incidents reported in Brooklyn in recent years. A 2023 report from the NYC Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence found that intimate-partner homicides in Brooklyn jumped 225 percent, from four in 2021 to 13 in 2022, even as citywide intimate-partner homicides rose a smaller 29.2 percent over the same period. Those figures predate the current incident and do not establish a trend for 2026.
The NYPD separately tracks precinct-level data on domestic violence offenders, chronic offenders, and outreach to victims when a perpetrator violates a court-issued order of protection, according to the department's own reporting framework. No such data specific to this case, including any order of protection, has been disclosed.
Other recent cases around the country underscore the particular danger of fire used as a weapon in domestic disputes. In upstate New York, officers went to an apartment to arrest a man in connection with an alleged domestic incident two days earlier after he allegedly set curtains on fire during a standoff, NewYorkUpstate reported. And in Louisiana, a woman was arrested after allegedly putting lighter fluid on her estranged husband and another person before trying to set them ablaze, according to WBRZ.
Investigation Remains Open
Brooklyn has also seen other violent domestic cases in recent memory, including one in which a woman was charged with stabbing her boyfriend to death during a dispute, as reported by amNewYork. In the Kingsborough Houses case, investigators have not released the suspect's identity, and it remains unclear whether the case will result in an arrest or what charges, if any, might follow. The woman's condition beyond being listed as stable has not been disclosed.
