Young Florida Man Is Cooked Alive When Police Tase Him As He Pumped Gas

A Florida man is clinging to life with horrific burns to 75% of his body after a sheriff’s deputy Tased him at a gas station, sparking a fire that “cooked” the victim alive, according to his lawyers.

Jean Barreto is still recovering from the third-degree burns from the confrontation with sheriff’s deputies in Orange County on Feb. 27, his attorneys said Tuesday.

“He is wrapped and unwrapped in gauze daily, bleeding profusely still as he doesn’t have the requisite amount of skin to contain his body fluids,” the lawyers wrote of the burns, which cover three-quarters of his body.

His lawyers said Barreto — a FedEx employee with no prior criminal record — was returning from a gathering of motorbike enthusiasts, which had been broken up by Osceola County deputies when he stopped at a Wawa gas station less than a mile from his home.

Surveillance video from the area showed Barreto standing by the gas pump when he was tackled and body-slammed to the ground by an Osceola County sheriff’s deputy, who had been trailing him after an attempted traffic stop.

By then, at least three other Osceola County patrol vehicles responded to the scene.

One of the arriving deputies saw Barreto and his colleague on the ground, and deployed his Taser against the biker, engulfing most of his body in flames, as seen in the harrowing footage. The deputy who tackled Barreto also suffered third-degree burns to half of his body.