A homeless parolee has been busted for torching an NYPD patrol car with a Molotov cocktail to get back at cops who kicked him out of a Bronx subway station, police said Tuesday.
Anthony Phillips was nabbed in Midtown Friday by cops who saw him panhandling and recognized him from a wanted poster, police said.
On Jan. 6, Phillips, 51, allegedly set fire to the patrol car outside the Pelham Bay Park subway station shortly after cops booted him out of the station for acting up.
Surveillance video show the firebug throwing a lit item at the vehicle’s front grill and engine.
When the cops returned to their car they found it engulfed in flames. No one was hurt and the cops put the fire out in a few minutes but the front end of the car was destroyed.
Phillips, charged with arson and reckless endangerment, has more than a dozen prior arrests on his record, police said.
He has served four state prison terms on charges of grand larceny, robbery and burglary, records show, and was most recently conditionally released by parole in August.
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