New York – The Attorney General of the state of New York is investigating the death of a 29-year-old man who died last month as a result of burns suffered when police officers fired a taser at him after the man sprayed himself with disinfectant gel, a flammable product.
In images from a security camera made public this Friday by the Prosecutor’s Office, it can be seen how the man’s torso and head are engulfed in flames immediately after an agent discharges his stun gun and how, initially, the police flee instead to help you.
The event took place on October 30 inside a police station in the town of Catskill, in the state of New York, where the deceased, Jason Jones, went to confront officers after they came to answer a call in a nearby bar, according to local media.
The images have now been made public for transparency reasons by the attorney general of New York, Letitita James, who has taken over the investigation because it is a death linked to a possible case of police violence.
The video shows Jones, apparently drunk and very agitated, taking off some of his clothes at the police station reception, then taking a large dispenser of disinfectant gel and spraying his head and body as officers ask him to calm down. .
Subsequently, three policemen approach him, apparently with the intention of stopping him, when one of them fires his taser. The victim disappears for a moment from the image and, by the time he returns, his head and torso are covered in flames.
The agents quickly escape and only return to attend to him once he has managed to put out the fire.
“Jason was unarmed, at the police station, and not threatening anyone when the police hit him with 50,000 volts of electrical current and set himself on fire,” Kevin A. Luibrand, a lawyer representing the Union, told the Times Union. family of the deceased.
“Instead of helping Jason, the police ran out of the room, closed the door and let him burn,” added the lawyer.
Jones was taken to a hospital and finally passed away on December 15 after being on a ventilator for a month and a half.
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