Police officer with stun gun sets naked man on fire

Associated Press

6:56 PM, Jul 18, 2017

7:34 PM, Jul 18, 2017

A Manitowoc man who caught fire while being tasered by police during an arrest could face multiple charges. Around 9:30 Friday night, officers responded to a call of a naked man standing in the middle of 25th Street yelling he had a knife and making threats.Newly released dashcam video shows the man being arrested.

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Police say an officer using a stun gun to restrain a naked man accidentally set the man's chest hair and beard on fire.

Officers found the 32-year-old naked man standing in the street in Manitowoc (MAN'-ih-toh-walk), Wisconsin, on Sunday evening. They say the man yelled that he wanted to harm people living nearby.

Officers suspected he was impaired by drugs and placed him in handcuffs, but the man struggled and refused to enter a squad car.

That's when one officer deployed a stun gun, striking a lighter in the man's hand. The lighter fluid and electricity combined to spark the fire in his beard and chest hair.

As officers extinguished the blaze, the man punched one of them in the face.

Manitowoc is 40 miles (65 kilometers) southeast of Green Bay.