Man Drenches Self in Gasoline, Police Taser Him

[Joanne98]

Source: USA Today


A Texas man is dead after suffering severe burns over a large part of his body during a violent confrontation with police. 47-year-old Johnny Lopez, who has a history of mental problems, apparently decided to drench himself in gasoline.

Once this was accomplished, he then began to splash it on one of the police officers. The police responded to Lopez by deploying a taser weapon upon him. Moments later, the gasoline covering the man ignited and the man was immersed in raging flames.

Witnesses saw Lopez playing with a lighter at approximately the same time the taser was used. "We don't know what ignited the fire," said Lt. Curtis Milbourn. The investigation is ongoing, and no motive for the man's bizarre escapade was revealed.




Read more: http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=63162

[superconnected]

1. Absolutely insane.

Wouldn't a tazer ignite the fire? I would think so. They shouldn't have tazered him because it would have ignited the fire either way.

[nebula]

2. A tazer uses thousands of volts of electricity to immobilize the suspect

of course it would have ignited the gasoline.

[ixion]

3. yep, most probably... note the 'moments later' spin

that covers up the connection between the tazer and the flame, as it were.

1) A man was covered with a flammable substance.

2) Someone applied a spark.

3)...

4) Somehow, the gasoline on the man ignited. :eyes:

[Brigid]

4. This is Texas -- what do you expect?

My apologies to DUers from Texas, but that state has the highest encarceration rate -- not to mention execution rate -- in the country. Just saw that little tidbit on CNN last night.

[ben_meyers]

5. Does a taser produce a spark?

I know a wet sparkplug (flooded engine) won't fire even with voltage, I don't know if a taser produces a spark.

[slampoet]

15. a wet sparkplug gets 12 volts of DC. If to apply a taser to that sparkplug it dries out real fast

from the 100's of volts of current.

[ben_meyers]

20. Actually the voltage to a sparkplug

Is stepped up by the coil to anywhere from 50,000 to over 100,000 volts. I think a Taser is around 50,000.

[VTMechEngr]

25. The wonders of the Inductor.

How a 12 volt generated field can collapse past a very long coiled wire and generate 30,000 - 100,000 volts when the battery current is interrupted. Its a shame ignition points are not used anymore, they had such elegant simplicity to them.

[pdefalla]

6. Does a taser produce a spark? YES!!

In fact, the Cincinnati Police Department has its officers "spark test" their tasers before each shift to make sure that it is producing the proper spark. It's like touching the positive and negative poles of a battery together, causing a short-circuit.
Others have tested tasers in conjunction with various types of Mace, and have determined that a Taser can cause a suspect to burst into flame if he has been sprayed with several different types of Mace. So if you shoot a taser into a gasoline-soaked suspect you should not be too surprised if he ignites.....

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

21. It say something about our society that we know this

I was absolutely disgusted with the taser attack at UCLA. They used it repeatedly after the man was in custody. Any story with a taser generally ends up being pretty insane.

[shenmue]

7. "[H]e then began to splash it on one of the police officers."

He was trying to set fire to the police officers. Did anyone else catch that?

The only other things to do were: A) wait for him to flick a lighter and kill them all B) shoot him. Yes, it's a shame, but this guy didn't exactly help his own cause.

[slackmaster]

8. The cops would have been justified in shooting him with a gun

IMO

[ben_meyers]

9. 2 of the man's sons say Lopez

2 of the man's sons say Lopez -- for months -- had threatened to burn himself and his house. His wife was seeking a divorce and he didn't want to leave the residence.

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6684824

Well tasers attorneys will be sure to jump on this statement. This looks like a suicide by cop.

[Kagemusha]

11. I don't get it. Does Taser call its device, safe to shoot gas-doused suspects with?

People are acting like it's some sort of defect in the device, not a defect in how the device was employed.

[ben_meyers]

14. No, it's just that Taser gets sued because of deep pockets

Most of the time the victims go after everybody involved.

[tammywammy]

13. Indeed the police only had two choices

The would have been justified in shooting too.

[Phinitum]

19. The police had many choices, but made the normal macho error

To be fair, it is possible that details not published could change that judgment, but what happened followed a typical problem.

A disturbed person starts acting in a way that could become threatening to people who approach them. So of course the police move right in to deal with the lawbreaker as quickly as possible, with their backup being the use of deadly force if they feel any threat. They seem to almost never consider the option of just containing the situation, keeping people out of harms way while talking the person down from a safe distance. Killing a disturbed person who had gasoline, a knife or other short-range weapon should almost always be considered the result of bad and possibly criminal conduct.

While the job of the police does include quelling disturbances, that can't be put above protecting life. Unfortunately there is a large segment of the population that disagrees. Some years ago the police had a stand-off for many hours with a Seattle man bearing a sword, eventually ending it without harm. They were criticized for the disruption to business on the street where it all happened.

[phrenzy]

10. Wasn't This A Scene In 'Zoolander'? (nt)

[Iris]

12. good one. n/t

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[catnhatnh]

17. I thought (perhaps foolishly) that "Democratic"...

...might somehow imply "liberal"...though I have seen suggestions that shooting a demented man was either appropriate or " not enough"...The thought that the act of soaking himself in gasoline should cause the police to either help ignite him or otherwise kill him makes me want to puke-I am deeply disappointed in this thread.

[Raskolnik]

22. What would you have done if you were in their place?

What would have been the "liberal" response to this situation?

[scrinmaster]

23. He had a lighter out and started splashing gasoline on the cops.

What would you have them do?

[Dollface]

18. I'm not going to automatically assume the police were wrong

Generally when someone douses something with gasoline they follow-up by starting it on fire. It occurs to me that perhaps the police thought they could save his life. The use of a taser does seem less destructive than a gun. Even though I've never made a mistake while under pressure in my job as a Kmart greeter, I can assume it can happen to anyone. I'm willing to wait for an investigation before I start making accusations. 'cause I'm a Liberal.

[BlooInBloo]

24. LOLOL!