A Chicago man accused of setting a young woman on fire aboard a train has a troubling history with arson. Lawrence Reed, 50, allegedly doused a 26-year-old passenger with gasoline on Monday, chasing her through the train car before igniting her clothing while shouting, “Burn alive, bitch!” The victim is currently in critical condition, suffering from severe burns to her head and body.

This alarming incident comes after Reed’s previous run-in with the law. In April 2020, he was arrested for an arson attack on a government building just before Governor J.B. Pritzker was scheduled to speak there. Despite the severity of the crime, Reed was given only probation and avoided jail time, as court records indicate.

Reflecting on Reed’s past offenses, ATF Special Agent-in-Charge Christopher Amon expressed frustration, stating, “Reed had plenty of second chances by the criminal justice system, and as a result, you have an innocent victim in the hospital fighting for her life.”

During the 2020 incident, Reed approached the Thompson Center, a key government building in the city, armed with two red cans. According to police, he poured liquid through a window and set it on fire, a brazen act that foreshadowed his latest alleged attack.

In his 2020 case, the career criminal approached the city’s Thompson Center building armed with two red cans before he poured liquid through a window and then set it alight, cops said.

The crime unfolded just minutes before Pritzker was scheduled to give a COVID-19 news conference in the building.

Reed was arrested and charged with aggravated arson but was sentenced in the Circuit Court of Cook County to just probation.

He was arrested several other times, too, for various offenses before he was accused of carrying out the heinous attack on the innocent straphanger on the Chicago train Monday night.

In total, Reed has been nabbed 71 times in Cook County alone and convicted in 13 of those cases.

At the time of Monday’s train attack, Reed was out on pretrial release for an aggravated battery charge for knocking a hospital social worker unconscious.

Prosecutors had asked for Reed to remain locked up in the case, but a judge overruled them — leaving him free to roam the streets.

“Lawrence Reed had no business being on the streets given that his violent criminal history and his pending criminal cases,” Amon said.

He has been hit with a federal terrorism charge in Monday’s caught-on-camera horror and is due in federal court Friday.