Newly released body camera footage reveals the sickening moment a deputy and a dirt bike rider were engulfed in flames after the officer fired a taser at a gas station.
Deputy David Crawford was heard screaming in pain and begging his fellow officers to ‘put out’ the fire on his legs as he desperately rolled around.
Meanwhile his victim, dirt bike rider Jean Barreto, 26, was ‘cooked alive’ in the fireball which left him with third-degree burns on approximately 75% of his body.
Both remain in hospital after the February 27 incident at the Wawa gas station in Florida. But Crawford will likely face misdemeanor charges of culpable negligence for igniting the explosion, Osceola County Sheriff Marco López said.
Police are also planning to charge Barreto with several charges, including resisting arrest, if he survives.
Osceola County Sheriff have released body cam footage of the incident this week under mounting pressure from the victim’s family and the media.
The first is from Crawford’s camera and shows him approaching the gas pumps where Barreto was filling his bike before tackling to the ground.
‘Get off the bike! Get on the ground now,’ Crawford can be heard yelling in the video as a fellow officer pulls out his Taser and fires it at him.