Fatal and non-fatal burn injuries with electrical weapons and
explosive fumes
Mark W. Kroll a, b, *
, Mollie B. Ritter c
, Howard E. Williams d
a
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
b
California Polytechnical Institute, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA
c
Piedmont Health System, Atlanta, GA, USA
d
School of Criminal Justice, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 17 October 2016
Received in revised form
22 May 2017
Accepted 18 June 2017
Available online 20 June 2017
Keywords:
TASER
Arrest-related-death
Burn
Fuel
Electrical weapons
CEW
ECD
a b s t r a c t
Introduction: While generally reducing morbidity and mortality, electrical weapons have risks associated
with their usage, including eye injuries and falls. With the presence of explosive fumes or fuels there also
exists the possibility of burn injury.
Methods: We searched for cases of fatal and non-fatal major burns with TASER®
electrical weapon usage
where there was a possibility that the weapon ignited the explosion.
Results: We conﬁrmed 6 cases of fatal burn injury and 4 cases of major non-fatal burns out of 3.17 million
ﬁeld uses. The mean age was 35.5 ± 9.7 years which is consistent with the typical arrest-related death.
Moderate, minor, and noninjurious ﬁres d typically due to a cigarette lighters in a pocket, petrol, recreational
inhalants, or body spray were also noted.
Conclusions: The use of electrical weapons presents a small but real risk of death from fatal burn injury. It
also presents a small risk of major non-fatal burn injury. The ignition of petrol fumes dominates these
cases of major fatal and nonfatal burns.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Death during arrest is a recognized event, for which there are
many known causes; sometimes the cause of the death remains
unexplained.1,2
Annually there are about 800 000 arrests in which
force is used in the United States and approximately 800 nonﬁrearm
ARDs (arrest-related-deaths) yielding a mortality rate of
about 1:1000.3,4
About 80% of resistant subjects have comorbidities
of mental illness, drug abuse, or intoxication; the majority
has at least 2 of these.5,6
The conducted electrical weapon (CEW) is involved in a minority
of ARDs.2,7
There have been 3.17 million ﬁeld uses as of Sept
2016. There have also been 2.13 million CEW training exposures for
a total of ~5.3 million human CEW exposures.8
Prospective studies have found suspect injury rate reductions of
about 65% with electronic control9,10
This is similar to the 2/3
reduction in fatal police shootings where CEW usage is not overly
restricted.11
Electrical weapons are, after all, weapons, and there are indeed
risks associated with their usage, including blinding eye injuries
and fatal head and neck injuries from falls.12,13
They are also electrical
and hence present a risk of igniting explosive fumes. The goal
of this paper is to summarize the mechanisms and risks of such
ﬁres and explosions.
1.1. Burn injury deﬁnitions
The American Burn Association (ABA) deﬁnes major burn injury
as partial thickness burns involving more than 25% of TBSA (total
body surface area) in adults (age 11e50) or full thickness burns
involving more than 10% TBSA. Any burns involving the face, eyes,
ears, hands, feet or perineum that may result in functional or
cosmetic impairment are also considered major.
Moderate burn injury includes partial-thickness burns of
15e25% of TBSA in adults (age 11e50) and fullethickness burns
involving 2e10% of TBSA. Minor burn injury includes burns
involving less than 15% of TBSA in adults (age 11e50) and fullthickness
burns involving less than 2% of TBSA.
1.2. Chemistry of a fume explosion
Fresh petrol has a lower explosive limit (LEL) of 1.4%. This means
that a mixture that is 98.6% air and 1.4% petrol vapor is explosive.
* Corresponding author. Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
E-mail address: mark@kroll.name (M.W. Kroll).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jﬂm
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jﬂm.2017.06.001
1752-928X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine. All rights reserved.
Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 50 (2017) 6e11
Surprisingly, this concentration level (1.4%) is not considered
acutely toxicologically dangerous but in the “recreational” intoxication
range for petrol sniffers.14,15
The upper explosive limit (UEL)
is 7.6% and thus petrol, per se, is not explosive. The minimum
ignition energy (MIE) for petrol is 0.24 mJ compared to the ~1 mJ of
the popular TASER X26 probe-wire connection and thus the fumes
are easily ignited by the arc in the “needle-eye” at the back of the
probe with an optimal concentration. See Fig. 1.
There are other liquids that have similar explosive capabilities.
Benzene (commonly used for methamphetamine production) has a
LEL of 1.34%. Butane (often used to manufacture hash oil) has a
higher LEL of 1.81e1.86% in different forms. Its isomer, isobutene, is
also present in cigarette lighters.
Oleocapsicum (pepper or OC) spray often uses ﬂammable propellants,
such as isopropyl alcohol, ethanol, and methyl isobutyl
ketone. A few use nitrogen, which is inherently non-ﬂammable.
Many of the OC sprays that are labelled as “non-ﬂammable” actually
can be ignited by a CEW.16
Most of these develop a small ﬂame
that is unlikely to produce a severe burn injury. However, the Aerko
“Clear Out” OC grenade reportedly will produce a large ﬂame with
CEW ignition.16
TATP (triacetone triperoxide) can be ignited by a
CEW discharge.17
The probes are deployed at an initial velocity of ~140 fps (43
mps) and the pulse rate is 19 pps. See Fig. 2. Hence the probes travel
2.3 m per pulse. Since the maximum arc is 4 cm, it is unlikely that a
probe would ever ignite a gas by arcing from the probe tip as it
approached the subject. The probe-wire arcs are the most likely
source of the ignition. While each pulse delivers about 100 mJ of
energy to the load, the amount of energy delivered to the arc (in
each probe) is estimated at ~1 mJ. However, in the event of heavy
clothing, or a probe lodged in the clothing on the subject's side
there can still be an arcing connection with more energy.
The minimum ignition energy for each substance is given in
Table 1. As seen in Fig. 3, the ignition energy goes up rapidly for
concentrations either higher or lower than the ideal.18
This can
explain why many electrical weapon probe deployments do not
cause an explosion even in the presence of a given fuel.
2. Case reports
Co-author HEW maintains a database of worldwide CEWproximate
arrest-related-deaths. It had 1063 cases (1007 from
USA) as of 21 September 2016. This ARD database has been crosschecked
with the TASER International, Inc. internal ARD database
and is continuously updated with Internet news scans. Autopsies
and law-enforcement investigative reports are regularly requested
via freedom-of-information letters. The HEW database has been
used in previous publications.13,19
Another author (MWK) did a
direct legal and news database search for cases meeting the inclusion
criteria.
For the 6 fatal burn cases, we obtained 5 full autopsy reports or
death certiﬁcates. We also obtained autopsy summaries from litigation
ﬁlings, police reports, or news accounts for all fatal cases. We
found sufﬁcient incident detail from litigation ﬁlings, police reports,
a coroner's inquest, or news accounts to support a classiﬁcation
of an electrical-ignited burn for all 10 major burn cases. We
excluded 2 additional cases as we judged them to have had an
alternative ignition source or an alternative cause of death,
respectively.
2.1. Fatal and non-fatal major burn injury cases
Cases are listed from earliest incident. See Table 2 for summary.
2.1.1. Cases #1, #2, and #3
Two police ofﬁcers responded to a 911 call to check on the
welfare of a man who was depressed and threatening suicide.
When the ofﬁcers arrived, they found the 41-year-old man in his
house, and they noticed a strong odor of natural gas inside. The
ofﬁcers entered the house to secure the suspect, but he resisted. To
subdue him, an ofﬁcer discharged his CEW. Immediately, the house
exploded into ﬂames with sufﬁcient force to blow down walls and
partially collapse the roof. Both of the ofﬁcers and the suspect
received serious burns, and all 3 were transported to a local
hospital.
The next day, the suspect died from his injuries. One ofﬁcer, who
was 26 years of age, suffered burns over about 45% of his body. He
survived for 33 days before succumbing to his injuries. The other
ofﬁcer, who was 36, received burns over about 35% of his body. He
remained hospitalized for 2 weeks, but he recovered from his
injuries.
The state ﬁre marshal's ofﬁce concluded that the evidence was
insufﬁcient to determine conclusively the cause of the explosion.
Investigators determined that the suspect had turned on the natural
gas before ofﬁcers arrived at his home. The surviving ofﬁcer
said the house exploded as he ﬁred his CEW so we conservatively
included this incident as CEW-causal.
2.1.2. Case #4
A deputy conducted a routine trafﬁc stop on the suspect, a 52year-old
male. When the ofﬁcer approached the suspect's van, he
suddenly drove away. A short pursuit ensued until the suspect
crashed and rolled the van. The suspect emerged from the van and
tried to run away, so the deputy applied her CEW. As she did, the
suspect's clothes caught ﬁre. The deputy grabbed the suspect,
pulled him to the ground, and rolled him into a creek, dousing the
ﬂames. Subsequent investigation revealed that the suspect had a
fuel container in the van, which splashed him with petrol during
the collision. The suspect suffered burns over about 70% of his body.
He survived in a hospital for 181 days before he died from complications
of the burn injuries.
2.1.3. Case #5
Ofﬁcers received a 911 call of a man pouring petrol around his
house and threatening to set it on ﬁre. The suspect, a 47-year-old
male, had a history of domestic disturbances with his family. According
to family members, he had for months threatened to set
ﬁre to himself and his house. When ofﬁcers arrived, they found the
man outside in his car. He was holding a cigarette lighter as he
poured petrol on himself and threatened to set himself on ﬁre. He
also claimed to have a bomb in the house. When he started to walk
into the house carrying a container of petrol and the cigarette
lighter, one ofﬁcer tried to subdue him with pepper spray, but that
Fig. 1. Probe conducting to cloth over aluminum foil. Note arcing in the wire-probe
connection eye.
M.W. Kroll et al. / Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 50 (2017) 6e11 7
Fig. 2. X26 CEW during probe launch.
Table 1
Relevant ﬂammable substances.
Substance Lower Explosive
Limit
Upper Explosive
Limit
Minimum Ignition Energy
(mJ)
Major Burn
Cases
Source or Usage
Petrol 1.4% 7.6% 0.24 7 Motor vehicles, arson, suicide, snifﬁng
Methane 5% 15% 0.21 3 Natural Gas
Isobutane 1.8% 9.5% 0.009 0 Spray-paint propellant, lighter ﬂuid
Ethanol 3.3% 19% 0.23 0 Spray-paint propellant, OC spray propellant
Isopropyl Alcohol 2% 12% 0.65 0 OC spray propellant
Methyl Isobutyl
Ketone
1% 8% 0.21e0.53a
0 OC spray propellant
1,1-diﬂuoro-ethane 3.7% 18% UNK 0 Refrigerant aka “Dust-off” sometimes sniffed
recreationally
TATP NA NA NA 0 Explosive
a
Published values for methyl ethyl ketone. UNK ¼ No published values found.
Fig. 3. Arc ignition energy for methane vs. air concentration.
M.W. Kroll et al. / Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 50 (2017) 6e118
effort was unsuccessful. When the suspect tried to splash another
ofﬁcer with petrol, both ofﬁcers simultaneously deployed their
CEWs. Contemporaneous with the application of the CEWs, the
suspect's clothing burst into ﬂames. Ofﬁcers extinguished the
ﬂames, and paramedics rushed the suspect to the hospital. The
suspect received burns over his entire body, with the exception of a
small area on the back of his head. He died from his injuries the
next day.
2.1.4. Case #6
A state trooper observed a man on an expressway driving a
motor scooter with no license plate. The trooper initiated a trafﬁc
stop, and, at ﬁrst, the suspect complied and pulled to a stop. When
the trooper got out of his cruiser to speak with the suspect, he drove
away, and a low-speed pursuit ensued. The suspect eventually tried
to pull into the parking lot of an apartment complex, but he crashed
when he struck a cable that was blocking the entrance. The scooter
began leaking petrol that coated the suspect's clothes. The suspect
ignored the trooper's commands to stay on the ground, and a
struggle ensued between the suspect and the trooper. The trooper
unsuccessfully tried electronic control several times, and these
applications did not ignite any fumes. Another trooper arrived and
applied his CEW igniting gasoline fumes and the subject's clothing.
The suspect fell to the ground, and ofﬁcers used ﬁre extinguishers
to put out the ﬂames. Once the troopers extinguished the ﬂames,
the suspect rose and again threatened the troopers. They used the
CEW once more to secure the suspect. The suspect survived, but he
suffered burns over about 1/3 of his body.
2.1.5. Case #7
When police arrived in response to a report of people snifﬁng
petrol, a 36-year-old man, known to be violent toward the police,
ran from a house at police ofﬁcers while carrying a cigarette lighter
and a container believed to contain fuel. The suspect ignored orders
to stop and continued to charge the ofﬁcer, who ﬁred a CEW. When
he did, the suspect's clothes, which had apparently been soaked in
petrol, caught ﬁre. The ofﬁcer threw the suspect to the ground and
smothered the ﬂames with his hands. The suspect suffered 3 burns
over 10% of his body, including his head, neck, and chest. Total burn
coverage was 20%. The ofﬁcer received burns to both hands. The
suspect is listed as a single case in Table 2 and the ofﬁcer is listed in
Table 3.
2.1.6. Case #8
A federal agent attempted to stop a vehicle driving on the wrong
side of an interstate highway. The suspect, a 24-year-old male,
initially refused to stop, but he stopped after running over a tire
deﬂation strip. Agents approached the vehicle, but the suspect
refused to get out or unlock the doors. When an agent saw the
suspect reach toward the center console, he broke out the passenger
door window and discharged his CEW into the vehicle.
When he did, the vehicle violently erupted in ﬂames. The suspect
was engulfed in ﬂames and died in the vehicle. The agent suffered
burns and lacerations of the face, but he survived and recovered
from his injuries. Subsequent investigation suggested that the
suspect had a quantity of exposed petrol in his vehicle d from
earlier petty arson activity d that had vaporized and exploded with
the spark from the CEW. Dash camera video clearly shows that the
explosion was initiated by the CEW. The suspect is listed in Table 2
and the ofﬁcer in Table 3.
2.1.7. Case #9
Police were called to a home where the 32-year-old suspect had
been involved in a disturbance. When ofﬁcers arrived, they found
the suspect in the garden behind the house drenched in petrol and
holding a lit match. One ofﬁcer, trying to prevent the suspect from
setting himself on ﬁre, discharged his CEW. The suspect was
instantly engulfed in ﬂames. Ofﬁcers smothered the ﬂames, and the
suspect was taken to a hospital where, 5 days later, he died from his
injuries. A forensic scientist testiﬁed to a coroner's jury that, in his
opinion as an experienced ﬁre investigator, it was the CEW that
ignited the petrol-soaked victim and not the lit match. A coroner's
inquest jury agreed that the likely source of ignition was a spark
from the CEW.
2.1.8. Case #10
Police conducted a trafﬁc stop on a drunk-driving suspect, a 26year-old-male,
who initially stopped, but then ﬂed. A pursuit
ensued that ended when the suspect wrecked his vehicle, rolling it
over several times. At ﬁrst, the suspect was trapped in the vehicle.
However, once emergency workers freed him, he began struggling
with ofﬁcers. One ofﬁcer discharged his CEW, and the suspect's
clothing, which was apparently covered in petrol, burst into ﬂames.
Fireﬁghters extinguished the ﬂames, and the suspect survived, but
he received severe burns over about 85% of his body.
2.1.9. Excluded cases
We found 2 other fatality cases where a CEW had been used and
the subject had some petrol on his clothing. In the ﬁrst case, the
subject appears to have doused himself in petrol d and ignited it
with his cigarette lighter d only after the electronic control
attempt. In the other case, the subject died of a myocardial
infarction 5 days after experiencing probable minor burn injuries
from a very brief ﬁre. A post-arrest photo shows the subject
walking with no apparent injuries.
3. Results
We found 10 major burn cases by the ABA criteria (6 fatal and 4
nonfatal). Our searches also found 2 moderate burn injury cases.
We found 11 cases of CEW-induced ﬁres with minor to zero injury
(2 ofﬁcers and 9 suspects). The 11 cases were comprised of 6 from
Table 2
Fatal and non-fatal major (ABA class) burn cases.
Case# Age Race State Month of Incident Month of Death Fuel
1 41 W MO Aug-04 Aug-04 Methane
2 26 W MO Aug-04 Sep-04 Methane
3 36 W MO Aug-04 Survived Methane
4 52 B NC Oct-05 Apr-06 Petrol
5 47 H TX Jun-07 Jun-07 Petrol
6 UNK UNK PA Aug-08 Survived Petrol
7 36 O WA, AUS Jul-09 Survived Petrol
8 24 W CA Mar-12 Mar-12 Petrol
9 32 W Devon, UK Mar-13 Apr-13 Petrol
10 26 W VA Feb-15 Survived Petrol
M.W. Kroll et al. / Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 50 (2017) 6e11 9
our searches and 5 from a survey of 507 CEW instructors (with 128
full responses).
We estimated a risk of 3.2 per million of major burns (CI
[1.7e5.8] by the Wilson score interval). For fatalities, the estimated
risk was 1.9 per million CI [0.9e4.1] and for non-fatal major burns
the risk was 1.3 per million CI [0.5e3.2]. The mean age was
35.5 ± 9.7 years which is consistent with the typical arrest-related
death.7,20,21
These estimates must be read in the context of the
major limitation of the study being the way in which we were
forced to ﬁnd the data d through online and database searches. We
focus on the rarity of the event, without claiming precision in its
measurement.
4. Discussion
We believe that this paper represents the ﬁrst methodical
analysis of the risk of major burn injury from electronic control.
Clark and Andrews reported that they had found 6 cases of fatal
burn injuries but did not provide details.22
They did perform an
excellent series of experiments on the nature of the petrol-fume
explosion from a CEW spark. Gerber demonstrated that TATP
could be ignited by a CEW, and Myers showed that many brands of
OC spray could be ignited by a CEW.16,17
The warnings of the largest CEW manufacturer appear to be
consistent with our results. They warn against usage around
“explosive or ﬂammable clothing or materials, liquids, fumes, gases,
or vapors.” They give examples of “petrol, vapor or gas found in
sewer lines or methamphetamine labs, butane-type lighters,
ﬂammable hair gels or some self-defense sprays.” With hindsight,
we could say that strictly following these warnings could have
prevented these burn injury cases. Such utopian reasoning, of
course, does not suggest a viable control option for the ofﬁcer at the
time of the incident. For example, in case #8 there was not enough
time for the ofﬁcer to smell the petrol and react. This was also the
only case where the inside of the car had a dangerous level of petrol
fumes.
Spray paint and body spray are not explicitly listed, by the
weapon manufacturer as risks. These items have explosive or
ﬂammable fuels and are hence covered by the broader warnings.
We also note that these cases only resulted in minor burns. We
found 4 cases where the probe punctured a plastic cigarette lighter
starting a ﬁre; there was a single burn injury. There were also 3
such cases with no ﬁre. See Table 4 for a summary of minor and
non-injury cases with and without ﬁres.
While much stress is placed on the risk of OC spray, this interaction
has never led to a serious injury beyond the face and neck
minor burn in case #3 of Table 3. The survey also found 6 cases of
concomitant OC spray application all without any ﬁre as seen in
Table 4. Whether the lack of major burn injuries d with OC spray d
is due to the low ﬂammability of OC spray versus the training
emphasis is difﬁcult to ascertain. We also note that a popular OC
propellant, isopropyl alcohol, has a fairly high minimum ignition
energy of 0.65 mJ.
It has been previously reported that the risk of a fatal head or
neck injury exceeds the hypothetical risk of electrocution.13,23
The
risk of a fatal burn also appears to exceed that of the hypothesized
electrocution.24
5. Limitations
A prospective experimental study would generate superior data
compared to our retrospective data. However, a relevant experiment
would have difﬁculty obtaining ethical approvals.
There is no national database that records data in such incidents,
so secondary sources are the only sources of information available
to identify the relevant cases. When primary sources of data, such
Table 3
Non-major burn injury cases.
# Age Race State Year Fuel Burn Injury Victim
1 AZ 2005 Lighter ﬂuid None S
2 OH 2005 Probable lighter Presumed minor to zero injury.a
S
3 28 B WI 2005 Ethanol OC Spray Minor (neck and face) S
4 53 W FL 2006 Isobutane: Lighter ﬂuid Moderate (upper body)b
S
5 ON, CAN 2006 AXE body spray Minor S
6 31 CA 2009 Petrol from spilled motorcycle. Minor (singed hair) S
7 UNK W WA, AUS 2009 Petrol Ofﬁcer burned hands in major case#7 O
8 31 W OH 2009 1,1-diﬂuoro-ethane Refrigerant Minor (chest & R arm) S
9 44 WA, AUS 2010 Petrol Moderate S
10 24 H CA 2012 Petrol Minor (Ofﬁcer has facial ﬂash burns in major case#8 O
11 W GA 2012 Spray paint Minor S
12 47 B OH 2015 AXE body spray Minor S
13 B LA UNK Lighter ﬂuid None S
Note: All victims were male. AXE body spray has Isobutane and ethanol as fuels.
O ¼ Ofﬁcer, S ¼ Suspect.
a
Subject ﬂed the scene.
b
Partial thickness (2
) burns to 15% just at the cutoff from minor to moderate by ABA. This was the most severe injury from a pocket cigarette lighter.
Table 4
Minor burn or non-injury ﬁre case summary.
Fuel Source Reason for Involvement Cases With Fire Case With Burns Cases With No Fire
Petrol Applied as liquid Suicide, arson, or motor vehicle accident 4 4 4
Isobutane Cigarette lighter Pocket location. 4 1 3
Isobutane & Ethanol AXE®
body spray Pocket location. 2 1 0
Ethanol OC spray Use of force 1 1 6*
1,1-diﬂuoroethane Dust-Off®
Recreational inhalation 1 1 0
Unknown (probably Isopropyl
Alcohol or Methyl Isobutyl Ketone)
Spray paint Recreational inhalation, grafﬁti 1 0 0
* Many brands of OC spray do not use ethanol.
M.W. Kroll et al. / Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 50 (2017) 6e1110
as autopsy reports, were available, we used them. However, autopsy
and police reports are not available in all states and countries,
depending on their public information laws. Police reports, autopsy
reports, and news accounts are also subject to bias.
Due to the extensive media coverage of any arrest-relateddeath,
we are conﬁdent that we have missed few d if any d
fatal burns cases. For the less-severe burns cases, our conﬁdence
decreases with the decreasing burn severity.
We also note that the sampling frame is less rigorous than we
would prefer. However, there is no practical alternative. We spent
signiﬁcant time searching open records sources trying to identify
cases for this study. We focused our examination on those cases
when the electrical weapon caused a ﬁre, and that ﬁre resulted in a
fatal or nonfatal major burn. Those instances are rare, but they are
critically important to understanding the risks of using such
weapons. Medical records are not available to us to study the effects
of this force on people who suffered minor or zero injuries, and the
effects on people who had no ﬁre ignited add nothing to the understanding
of the risks of fatal ﬁres once the rate is calculated, as
we did.
6. Conclusions
The use of electrical weapons presents a small but real risk of
death from fatal burn injury. It also presents a small risk of major
non-fatal burn injury. The ignition of petrol fumes dominates these
cases of major fatal and nonfatal burns.
Conﬂict of interest statement
MWK has been an expert witness in law-enforcement litigation
(and speciﬁcally in case #8) and is a member of the Axon (fka TASER)
corporate and scientiﬁc advisory board who partially funded
this work. HEW is a retired Police Chief and has been an expert in
law-enforcement litigation and a coroner's inquest. MBR reports no
conﬂicts.
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