Death By Hand Sanitizer?

On the face of it, this incident is yet another tragicomedy on a Saturday night in the precinct. Then the hospital got involved.

New York AG launches investigation as video shows man went up in flames after police fired Taser

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By Sophie Reardon, 7 January 2022

Videos released by the New York attorney general’s office Friday show a man engulfed in flames after a police officer used a Taser on him. Jason Jones, 29, later died at a New York hospital.

The first of two videos dated October 30, 2021, begins with Jones and three officers are in the lobby of a police station in Catskill. Jones appears to be upset, ripping his shirt off, throwing a shoe and knocking over a hand sanitizer container.

In the second video, an officer fires his Taser just after Jones had squirted the flammable hand sanitizer onto his head and body. There is a flash of light and Jones’ upper body becomes engulfed in flames for just over 20 seconds. He rolls on the floor to put the flames out, and when he stands, he appears to have burns on his upper body. Medics arrive minutes later.

Here’s a link to a sped-up video. It probably won’t last but it’s not worth archiving, either.

Recap, Jones had a domestic dispute at a bar on Halloween Saturday then walked to the precinct about 400 yards away. Some reports claim he was ‘previously known to law enforcement’. As shown on the link, he acted disturbed while three cops watched, one of them doing the talking, all appearing calm and professional.

Jones eventually picks up a big jug of hand sanitizer and douses himself with it. Police decide they’ve had enough, Talky Cop pulls a taser and puts him down off-camera while his buddies move in to restrain, then FOOM! ‘Rona be gone! Good hand sanitizer!

Police flee the room while Jones flails at the flames. He doesn’t succeed but the flames go out on their own. Police wander back in and start the cleanup. None of them came back with a fire extinguisher. I don’t mind they ran, I do mind that 0 of 3 did the obvious response when there had to have been one available.

Judging from the footage, Jones is left with definite first-degree and maybe some second-degree burns. About what one would expect. I remember lighting my hands on fire that way on purpose… good times. You spritz your hands with alcohol, have a buddy light it, then you can wave your hands in fiery patterns for a few seconds until it burns out. The speed keeps it cool long enough to not hurt but you keep a water bucket handy just in case. Typical stupid-kid trick. Some better advice for the stupid-inclined:

Conclusion, Jones did douse himself with alcohol and the taser did ignite it, but one wouldn’t expect the injury to be life-threatening.

So then, how did Jones die in the aftermath?

Man dies after catching on fire from catskill police taser, AG opens investigation

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By Steve Maugeri, 16 December 2021

Typical of mainstream media, that title proves to be very deceptive and needlessly anti-cop. It doesn’t even need to be anti-cop in this case, yet it is.

Jason Jones’ attorney Kevin Luibrand says his client spent 48 days in an intensive care in Syracuse after he says his client caught on fire after being tased by Catskill police on October 30. Officials with the attorney general’s office say that Jones allegedly had sprayed hand sanitizer on his body and head and this may have caused him to light on fire.

That’s too long. 48 days is when you need major skin grafts.

Now State Attorney General Letitia James has announced that her office is investigating his death, since state law requires her office to investigate the death of a person if it involves police. Luibrand says he sent the AG’s office a letter notifying them that Jones had died.

Fine.

“Right now the family wants to know what happened. The first and only goal right now is to determine what happened to cause their son to be engulfed in flames inside a police station,” Luibrand said.

Whoa there, hot-to-sue. What did the hospital do to him? Put him on a ventilator for the FedGov bribe money? An ICU visit, sure, maybe a stay if his face was burned worse than the video showed, but neither the taser nor the fire killed him.

To date, neither Luibrand nor the AG has released the cause of death. If I wait for that then this post might never happen. This much-vaunted Information Age has a nasty habit of releasing just enough information for people to reach only politically-correct conclusions, such as an unarmed man exploding because zapzap.

Jason Jones’ story should have been a minor, tragicomic mixture of a jilted lover plus a cop who failed chemistry class. Instead, he’s dead and nobody is asking about what the hospital did to him for seven weeks between getting zapped and dying “cuz he got zapped”.