For the first time since a woman was set on fire on board a CTA Blue Line train this week, her family was speaking out on Thursday.

"We would like to thank everyone for their prayers and well-wishes as our daughter receives care for injuries sustained earlier this week. We are also grateful for the excellent care and support of the burn team at Stroger Hospital," her family said Thursday night, as she remained under care in the burn unit at Stroger Hospital.

The 26-year-old woman's family did not identify her or provide an update on her condition, saying only that they were focusing their attention on her recovery.

The man charged with attacking her, 50-year-old Lawrence Reed, was due back in federal court on Friday, when a judge will decide whether he should remain in custody while he awaits trial on a charge of committing a terrorist attack against a mass transportation system.

At the time of the attack, Reed was on electronic monitoring, after a Cook County judge declined to hold him in jail on an aggravated battery charge accusing him of hitting a social worker at MacNeal Hospital Psychiatry and Behavioral Health in west suburban Berwyn. 

Cook County prosecutors had asked the judge to keep Reed in custody until his trial in that case, but instead the judge placed him on electronic monitoring – despite an extensive criminal history with nearly 50 arrests and multiple felony convictions in the last three decades.

Another judge later modified the monitoring hours. Still, the attack happened at a time when Reed would have been under active monitoring.

Mayor Brandon Johnson called it "an absolute failure of our criminal justice as well as our mental health institutions."

While calling the attack "a horrific tragedy that should have never happened," the mayor also said it was an "isolated incident," pointing out 1 million people rely on the CTA every day.

Johnson said what Reed is accused of doing speaks to the need to address the lack of mental health clinics in Chicago.

"He was clearly seriously mentally disturbed, and was a danger to himself and to others. The system that we had failed to intervene, and now we have woman who is fighting for her life," the mayor said.

The fire attack on the Blue Line left CTA riders shaken. Reed is accused of filling a small bottle with gasoline at a Citgo station, then jumping on the Blue Line 20 minutes later, before dousing the woman in gasoline and setting her on fire without any provocation.

Johnson said the state needs to expedite funding dedicated to mental health services and programs for people experiencing homelessness as part of a $1.5 billion mass transit bailout approved by the Illinois General Assembly last month.

"There are number of people who are suffering severely from trauma and mental illness and it's becoming increasingly more dangerous," Johnson said.

In January 2020, Reed pleaded guilty to breaking the windows on a Blue Line train at O'Hare International Airport, and was sentenced to two years' probation, but the CTA never moved to ban him from the mass transit system.