A 26-year-old Florida man is battling for his life after being “cooked alive” when a sheriff deputy’s Taser sparked a fire at a gas pump, burning him over 75% of his body, attorneys for the victim said Wednesday.
Three deputies were also injured in the February incident — including one who suffered burns on half his body — attorneys at the firm NeJame Law said in a statement detailing the horror.
Lawyers want the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to take over the investigation into the incident and for the U.S. Department of Justice to scrutinize Osceola County Sheriff’s Office protocols and practices overall.
Jean Barreto was on his way home from a gathering of motorbike aficionados on Feb. 27 after Osceola County deputies disbanded them, NeJame Law said in a statement.
Jean Baretto (Courtesy of NeJame Law)
Barreto, a FedEx employee with no criminal record, stopped at a Wawa gas station to fill up his dirt bike.
No sooner had he filled the tank when he was “body slammed with a flying tackle from behind” by an Osceola County sheriff’s deputy he never saw coming, the law firm’s release states.
Unbeknownst to Barreto, the deputy “had been secretly trailing him” and proceeded to “bum-rush” the bike enthusiast even before he had a chance to cap his gas tank after pumping, the attorneys allege.
The tackle knocked both Barreto and the bike to the ground. Gas spilled all over both Barreto and the deputy. Three other deputies showed up in separate vehicles.
Seeing Barreto and the deputy on the ground, one of the arriving deputies deployed his Taser on Barreto, “engulfing almost his entire body in flames and approximately half of the other deputy’s [body] as well,” the NeJame law firm said.
“This fireball, caused by the reckless, foolish, unnecessary and deadly tasing leading to the horrific explosion, engulfing the two of them and injuring two other deputies with minor burns,” said the lawyers.
Ten weeks later, Barreto is still hospitalized, practically skinless, in excruciating pain and undergoing constant treatment, his lawyers say. He has had at least six surgeries and been placed in a medically induced coma twice.
Last Thursday, the Florida State Fire Marshal ruled that the Taser caused the gas station fire. The lawyers accused Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez and his department of withholding information, including body camera footage and deputies’ reports.
All this happened outside the Osceola County sheriff’s jurisdiction, since the Wawa gas station was 5 miles into neighboring Orange County, attorneys said.
At most, the deputies could have charged Barreto with “traffic violations and possible misdemeanors,” the lawyers said. He was unarmed.
The release added that deputies only called for help for their colleagues, not for Barreto, as he lay “on the ground with his body sizzling.”
Osceola Sheriff’s Office officials told WESH-TV that Barreto had been among a group of motorcyclists pointing a gun, harassing other drivers and driving recklessly.
Osceola officials have shared little information about the incident with Barreto’s family, his stepmother, Frances Aponte, told WFTV-TV. She said authorities at first would not give her information, and made her wait a few days.
When she finally got to see her stepson in the hospital, Aponte told the TV station, he was swathed in bandages from his neck to his ankles.
“The police burned me,” Aponte quoted her stepson as saying. “He is not going to be the same,” she added.
Copyright © 2021, New York Daily News
Copyright © 2021, New York Daily News