In Summary
An investigation is underway after a man caught on fire at a Catskill Police Department while he was being tased by the police.Warning: This story describes graphic imagery.
The case of a man who caught on fire when police tased him while he was covered in hand sanitizer is now being investigated by New York’s attorney general, according to CNN.
The attorney general’s office on Friday released two videos from October 2021, showing Jason Jones, 29, interacting with cops in the lobby of the Catskill Police Department.
In his encounter with Catskill authorities, Jones is shown taking off his sweater, ripping his shirt and pacing in the lobby. He’s then shown putting hand sanitizer over his body and head, CNN reported.
One of the officers can then be seen pointing and firing a Taser at Jones when he’s enveloped in flames and falls on the floor.
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The videos also show the officers running out of the room once Jones is on fire, returning seconds later to put out the flames. He is then seen wheeled out of the lobby 15 minutes later.
According to his family’s attorney Kevin Luibrand, Jones died from his injuries on Dec. 15 after spending 47 days in the ICU at a Syracuse hospital, the New York Post reported.
“Jason was unarmed, in the police station, and not threatening anyone when the police hit him with 50,000 volts of electrical current and he ignited,” Luibrand told the Post. “Instead of helping Jason, the police ran out the room, shut the door and let him burn.”
A criminal justice instructor, who trains cops on how to use Tasers, told the New York Times that he instructs officers to determine if someone has accelerants on them before discharging the weapon.
“Most people, not everybody, knows that hand sanitizers are alcohol-based,” Brian Higgins told the Times. “Based upon that, they should not have deployed their Tasers.”