CATSKILL—The New York State Attorney General’s Office on Friday released about an hour of video footage from the Catskill Police Department that was obtained as part of the ongoing investigation into the death of Jason Jones.
Jones, 29, of Catskill died December 15, 2021, following an encounter with members of the Catskill Police Department on October 30, 2021 in which he doused himself with hand sanitizer before being taser by officers.
The video, which includes a graphic content warning and has no sound, is from security camera footage in the front lobby of the Catskill Police Station on Main Street during the early morning hours of Saturday, October 30.
The video shows three Catskill Police officers verbally engaged with Jones, who takes his own shirt and shoes off. Eventually Jones douses his head and upper body with hand sanitizer from a large pump bottle belonging to the police department. A few minutes later one of the officers deploys his taser and Jones is seen on the video bursting into flames.
The video can be viewed on the Attorney General’s website at https://ag.ny.gov/osi/footage/jason-jones
Police were familiar with Jones from prior encounters, Catskill Police Chief Dave Darling had said. On the night of the taser incident, Jones walked into the Catskill Police Station after reportedly drinking in at least one local bar, but it remains unclear why he went to the station.
Jones was initially taken by Catskill Ambulance to Albany Medical Center before being transferred to the burn unit at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse where he died.
Because the investigation remains ongoing, many details have not been disclosed and the names of officers involved has not yet been released. The Greene County District Attorney’s Office was initially investigating the incident, but the Attorney General’s Office took over upon learning Jones had died.
“If the taser incident is the cause of death, the attorney general will decide what, if any role, my office will have in the case from this point forward,” said Greene County District Attorney Joseph Stanzione.
An autopsy was scheduled to be performed the day after Jones’ passing and a cause of death has not yet been publicly released.
An executive order signed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2015 gave the attorney general’s office the power to investigate, and if warranted, prosecute cases involving deaths of unarmed persons due to interaction with law enforcement. In June of 2020, the state legislature passed, and the governor signed, a new law which confirms the executive order and expands the attorney general’s authority to deaths of persons who are armed or who are not civilians, and to deaths caused by certain peace officers, including correctional officers.
“The release of this footage follows Attorney General [Letitia] James’ directive that videos obtained by her office in the course of investigations conducted by the Office of Special Investigation (OSI) be released to the public in order to increase transparency and strengthen public trust in these matters,” according to a statement from the Attorney General’s Office. “The release of this footage is not an expression of any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of any party in a criminal matter or any opinion as to how or whether any individual may be charged with a crime.”
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