Man hit with federal terrorism charge in arson attack on Chicago Blue Line

CHICAGO — Late Monday night, federal authorities said a man in all black approached a young woman on a Blue Line train, took out an iced tea bottle and poured clear liquid onto the woman’s head. Then he set it on fire.

Lawrence Reed allegedly stood at the front of the train car and watched as the 26-year-old woman, “engulfed in flames,” rolled on the floor of the train car trying to snuff out the blaze.

Prosecutors Wednesday afternoon charged Reed, of Chicago, with a single count of terrorism against a mass transportation system for the apparently unprovoked attack in an unusual 13-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

Days before the Blue Line attack, an unidentified person had tried to set Chicago’s city hall on fire. Police suspect that Reed, 50, was the aggressor in both cases, one of which has drawn the ire of Trump administration officials who frequently target blue cities’ public transit safety for political points. Cook County court records show that Reed has a history of mental illness that has been a factor in several earlier criminal cases, including a 2020 attempt at setting the Thompson Center on fire.

The 13-page complaint alleges that Reed filled a bottle with gasoline at a Garfield Park gas station about 30 minutes before the attack took place, getting on the Blue Line at the Kedzie Stop before he allegedly approached the woman in the train car.

Chicago police arrested Reed Tuesday morning as he was walking westward on Washington Boulevard, per the complaint. According to his arrest report, officers were looking for Reed in connection with the alleged Blue Line attack, but later linked him to the City Hall fire and alleged that he’d thrown bricks through the window of a group home in the East Side neighborhood Monday.

Per the complaint, Reed yelled “burn alive, (expletive)” while officers were taking him to the Harrison (11th) District police station for questioning.

In July 2021, Reed was convicted of aggravated arson after he poured gasoline along a window ledge of the Thompson Center, which at the time was home to much of the state of Illinois’ Chicago operations, and tried to set the fluid on fire. He was sentenced to two years of mental health probation, which court records show he completed in December 2023. Two years earlier, he’d been arrested and charged with criminal damage to government property for smashing out windows on a Blue Line train car, for which he was later sentenced to two years of probation.

Reed was arrested Tuesday while on pretrial release for an aggravated battery case stemming from charges that he allegedly hit a social worker in the face in a Berwyn hospital so hard the alleged victim lost consciousness. Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez denied prosecutors’ petition to have Reed held in jail pending trial, instead ordering him released on electronic monitoring with regular check-ins with a probation officer. Reed pleaded not guilty to the charge Oct. 21, records show, and was supposed to return to court Dec. 4.

The Trump administration has been using CTA crime as a political cudgel for several months, but President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary Sean Duffy used the Blue Line attack renewed his criticism of transit system’s approach to public safety in a Tuesday social media post.

“This horrific attack is EXACTLY why we need communities to take safety seriously. Blue cities cannot allow another Iryna Zarutska to happen,” Duffy wrote, referring to a 23-year-old woman killed in an apparently random fatal stabbing attack on a commuter train in North Carolina.

In September, Duffy wrote a letter to the CTA asking it to lay out its plans to reduce crime and fare evasion on the system — or risk losing federal funding.

“I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter to avoid further consequences, up to and including redirecting or withholding funding,” wrote Duffy, who has sent similar letters to the leaders of mass transit agencies in the Democratic-led cities of New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Boston.

In a news release about the letters to transit leaders in Chicago and Boston, the U.S. Department of Transportation pointed specifically to cashless bail policies in the two cities, which it claimed “allows deranged criminals to repeatedly terrorize public spaces.”

The CTA’s acting president, Nora Leerhsen, defended the agency’s safety practices in a response to Duffy dated Oct. 3.

“We recognize that it is absolutely critical that we remain laser-focused on providing a safe and secure ride for everyone on our system,” Leerhsen wrote. “We share your focus on this important issue.”

Leerhsen claimed crime on the Blue Line specifically had dropped 30% over last year.

She also outlined the transit agency’s various crime-fighting initiatives, including its use of an AI-gun detection technology called ZeroEyes and the opening of a new strategic support center this summer in collaboration with Chicago police.

The CTA referenced the strategic support center again in a statement following the Blue Line attack, saying it was working with Public Transportation Unit detectives embedded within the support center to aid their investigation.

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—Tribune’s Madeline Buckley contributed.

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