*Editor’s note: This is the first part of a two-part series on the ongoing state investigation into the death of Jason Jones and possible legislative action on local police in New York.
Jason Jones’ family is ready for answers and demanding justice as the New York State Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations continues to weigh criminal charges against the police officers involved in his death nearly two years ago after.
Jones, a 29-year-old Catskill man, died in December 2021 after an encounter with Catskill police. Jones caught fire when an officer shot him with a Taser after wiping himself with hand sanitizer in the lobby of the Main Street Police Department.
Jones died 47 days later from injuries related to third-degree burns. The state attorney general’s office opened an investigation into the incident immediately after her death, but it’s been nearly 20 months without an update.
“I’m trying to move on, you know, but with the investigation still going on, it’s kind of hard,” said Mary Jo Snyder, Jones’ birth mother. “I’m angry about this. I don’t see why it’s taking so long, we all seem to be doing the rounds.”
Investigators from the state attorney general’s office met with a family member and his attorney last week with no update, only that thorough investigations take time and the investigation is ongoing.
The failure to update the languishing investigation is something Jones’ family says they’ve heard from state investigators several times before, which they say has made them lose faith in the AG’s investigative process.
“Especially for my parents, the fact that nothing happened, they felt like things are in limbo,” said Justin Jones, Jason’s brother. “They just had to try to move things forward and try to move things in the direction of a conclusion of any legal matter and to a place where they could, hopefully, we all can, find some closure on this.”
Jason Jones, who was unarmed, walked into the Catskill police station on the night of October 30, 2021, in apparent distress.
In security images released around the attorney general’s office, Jones is seen walking around the lobby at times with his hands on his head. Finally he takes off his clothes and covers himself with hand sanitizer in front of three policemen.
One fired a Taser minutes later, setting Jones on fire. The officers fled, including two behind a closed door beyond the station, leaving a burning Jones on the ground, working to put out the flames covering his alcohol-soaked head with his hands.
The flames caused severe third-degree burns. Jones was treated at SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospital’s Clark Burn Center until his death.
Snyder, Jason’s birth mother, says she doesn’t understand why the attorney general’s office is still waiting to file criminal charges against the officers involved.
Catskill police have updated their use-of-force policies and procedures since the incident, but Snyder wants the officers involved to be held accountable.
“I’m pretty sure they were taught that when you have an alcohol base on your skin, you don’t use a Taser,” he said. “Recycling is good, they should be recycling everyone, but when this incident happened, they [the officers] they were already trained. …They must be paid. I just hope that Jason gets some justice for this because this should never have happened.”
The security footage was released shortly after Jones’ death. A citizen eyewitness also saw the incident unfold.
“I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years — I know things take time, but now it’s almost 20 months with a video,” Luibrand said. “With a case that’s not really complicated, it’s pretty simple, and a decision hasn’t even been made about what to do with the case?”
Investigators from the AG’s office have met or spoken with the family several times since last fall. Each time, they have been inadequately told that the investigation would conclude in a matter of weeks. Months have continued to pass with no word on when the investigation will end or when a decision will be made on possible criminal charges.
“There’s no end in sight,” Luibrand said. “It’s created this sense of false hope for the family, and then disappointment for the family. … We’ve lost faith in the process at this point.”
Officials with the Catskill Police Department and the state attorney general’s office declined to comment Monday, citing the ongoing investigation.
State law requires staff from the Office of Special Investigations in the attorney general’s office to investigate when an unarmed person dies at the hands of law enforcement. The duration of each investigation can vary, from several months to several years, depending on the complicated nature of the legal analysis of the case.
Kevin Luibrand, an attorney with the Luibrand Law Firm PLLC representing Jones’ family, argues that many similar investigations are often resolved much more quickly with less evidence and the delay makes no sense.
“The potential offense is captured almost entirely on video, if not entirely on video,” Luibrand said. “So it’s not difficult to make a decision about whether or not to present him to a grand jury.”
The lawyer sent the AG’s office a letter earlier this year asking for answers in the case or an update on when the investigation would conclude.
Luibrand wonders if the investigation has progressed more slowly because of a lack of publicity and public pressure for justice.
“It seems that the groups, the people, the spokespeople, the families that are strong in the protests and the wave signals, they seem to get a resolution, if not justice, much faster, and it’s really not right” , he said.
Sources say the AG’s office treats and investigates each case with equal priority and vigor, regardless of public or political influence.
Justin says it was clear his brother was suffering a mental health crisis when he walked into the Catskill police station in the fall of 2021. He’s spared the conversation about how best law enforcement can respond to a mentally challenged person and when it is appropriate to use force.
“[Jason’s] You are certainly not the only person who has been in this situation and gone to the police for help or found themselves in a situation involving the police, and it has been found that instead of getting help, the they hurt or killed them,” said Justin Jones. “The answer to someone in my brother’s situation shouldn’t be, ‘Well, even if he wasn’t covered in a flammable substance, let’s go and Tase them and we control them.” It should be, ‘Let’s go here to someone who has the right training and the right skills to help someone with this in these circumstances.'”
Jones’ family filed a civil suit in federal district court in Albany. It remains stopped while the AG probe continues.
The final decision of the AG’s investigation does not prevent the family or another person from starting a criminal case.
