Yesterday, Townhall told you about two horrible crimes in Chicago that happened just this week. In one, a pregnant woman and her child were beaten by a mob of students outside a Chicago school. If that wasn't bad enough, a 26-year-old woman was set on fire on Chicago's Blue Line after reportedly getting into an argument with a career criminal named Lawrence Reed.
In the initial reporting, we believed Reed had 22 prior arrests. That's inexcusable enough, but it turns out Reed had 49 prior arrests, including for arson, as well as ten felony convictions. And it seems Reed's victim didn't get into an argument with him at all. Reed just approached her, doused her with a flammable liquid, and set her on fire.
🚨BREAKING: The Blue Line fire attacker has been identified as a repeat offender, Lawrence Reed .
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) November 19, 2025
After being arrested for randomly setting a 26-year-old woman on fire, Reed shouted “Burn alive, b***h!”as officers took him into custody.
CTA surveillance footage shows Reed… pic.twitter.com/F7zyXmnqHO
After being arrested by Chicago police officers in the Loop on Tuesday morning, the man accused of setting a woman on fire aboard a Blue Line train this week spontaneously yelled “Burn b****!” and “Burn alive b****!” according to a newly filed federal criminal complaint.
Lawrence Reed, a 50-year-old man on pretrial release for allegedly knocking a psychiatric ward social worker unconscious in August, is federally charged with a terrorist attack or other violence against a mass transportation system.
In a complaint filed Wednesday morning, an agent of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives describes Monday’s random attack on a 26-year-old woman in gut-wrenching detail, saying CTA surveillance video showed Reed dousing the woman with gasoline, igniting her, and watching as she burned before walking away.
The allegations describe a sequence of events that began about 20 minutes before the attack, when Reed was recorded at a West Side gas station filling a small container with gasoline while wearing the same clothing later seen on CTA surveillance footage.
That surveillance video shows this was an intentional, premeditated act. Reed boarded the Blue Line with a container of gasoline with the intention of setting something, or someone, on fire.
The woman exited the train at the Clark and Lake platform, where bystanders helped put out the flames. Sources said no one on the train attempted to help the woman during Reed's attack.
Five years ago, Reed attempted to set the Thompson Center on fire because he was angry that he didn't receive his Social Security check. Instead of putting Reed in prison, Judge Arthur Hill sentenced him to two years of "mental health probation." While on that probation, Reed was arrested three times, including twice for battery. Those charges were dropped by prosecutors, and the court deemed his probation behavior "satisfactory."
In a blow to the "defund the police crowd," and further proof that their plan to send in social workers to deal with crime will fail spectacularly, Reed was arrested in August for assaulting a social worker at a psychiatric hospital. Reed knocked the woman unconscious and according to CWBChicago, she suffered "extreme nausea, severe pain in the eye and head, and difficulty with balance," ended up in the ER twice, and was diagnosed with "optic nerve bruising and a concussion causing her to experience memory issues, headaches, and daily nausea."
Prosecutors charged Reed with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm. Despite those serious charges and his lengthy record, Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez refused to jail Reed and ordered him released on electronic monitoring. Under her orders, Reed was allowed to leave his home from 6 am to 2 pm on weekdays, and could only visit the psychiatric hospital in the event of an "emergency." In September, Judge Ralph Meczyk modified the monitoring to let Reed leave his home on Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
That means Reed was not authorized to be on the CTA Blue Line on Monday morning. But, given his history and the court's repeated leniency, Reed didn't care. And now an innocent woman is in the hospital fighting for her life.