TONAWANDA, N.Y. — Authorities in New York helped rescue a man before his vehicle burst into flames.

On Thursday, Tonawanda Police officers pulled a man out of his vehicle moments before it burst into flames.

Around 1:45 p.m., officers responded to a crashed vehicle near Parker Boulevard and Faraday Road.

The car hit a pole and drove through a fence onto Adams Field.

Officers pulled Saverio Depinto, 46, from the vehicle after attempting to smash the window.

Officer Alyxander Pasquale successfully got Depinto to unlock the door and pulled him to safety.

Officers Jacob McCormick, Sarah Heft, and Pasquale are being credited for their decisive actions in the performance of lifesaving actions.

Witnesses said that moments before the crash, Depinto was driving fast and ran a stop sign at Parker Boulevard.

Depinto showed signs of impairment and was charged with reckless endangerment, driving while ability impaired - drugs, reckless driving, and several traffic infractions.

Andrew Murphy at WKBW first reported this story.

CINCINNATI —

A man has filed a lawsuit against a Cincinnati police officer accusing the officer of tasing him while he was handcuffed in the back of a cruiser.

The encounter happened in April of 2020 and was caught on body camera video.

The man's attorney filed a $1 million lawsuit in federal court citing the officer used excessive for and his client was traumatized and has PTSD.

The man, identified as Samson Jackson, was being transported on a warrant for charges of felonious assault and robbery.

In the body camera footage you can hear Jackson antagonizing Officer David Dozier, calling him names and challenging him to a physical fight.

Officer Dozier reports on his radio that while in the backseat, Jackson pulled his handcuffs to the front of his body, became free from the lap bar and spit on him.

That's when Dozier pulled over his cruiser and stopped.

Jackson's attorney said officer Dozier then tased his client multiple times.

Video shows Jackson was handcuffed during the entire encounter.

In the lawsuit, Jackson claims his rights were violated and that he was subjected to excessive force.

FOP President Dan Hils released a statement Thursday about the incident.

Hils said officer Dozier was suspended for three days following the incident.

You can read the full statement below:

This criminal repeatedly called our African American officer the N word, threatened to assault him, and said he would urinate on the grave of the officer's mother and on the face of the officer's daughter. Our officer had just lost his brother to a murder the month before this incident. Police officers are people too, and statements like those made by this criminal are vicious.

The suspect managed to get his hands out from behind his back and was trying to slip out of the handcuffs. The suspect spit on our police officer. Spitting on an officer is a crime. The officer was understandably angry, but the officer realizes the repeated tasing of the suspect was improper. This happened two years ago, the officer accepted his punishment of three days suspension and has been back on the job serving the community ever since.

The officer accepted responsibility for what he did wrong. However, it's also wrong for a suspect who acted in such a racist and violent manner to ask city taxpayers to give him money two years after the fact.

After nearly six months of investigations, the defense legal team released more than 1,200 graphic evidence photos from inside and outside Breonna Taylor's Louisville apartment.

Taylor was shot five times March 13, 2020, while Louisville Metro Police Department officers carried out a no-knock warrant for a drug investigation.

Many of the photos were too graphic to show but those released paint a picture of what happened during the raid:

• Nearly a dozen shell casings are seen scattered across the apartment parking lot; dozens more in the alcove in front of Taylor's apartment, which is where LMPD Officer Brett Hankinson's termination letter states he fired 10 rounds through a covered patio door and window.
• Inside Taylor's apartment, several photos displayed her belongings pierced with bullet holes: her clock, shower, chairs, mirrors, cabinets, pots, inside drawers, shoes as well as walls and ceilings that back up to her neighbors.
• In Taylor's room, a photo showed a gun under her bed that was legally owned by her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was with her that night. Walker said he fired one shot when he thought someone was breaking in.
• A photo of LMPD Officer Anthony James revealed he was wearing a body camera. LMPD previously said no body camera video existed as they said officers were not wearing cameras.
• Another photo displayed a letter to Taylor from her ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover. He was the person named on the warrant that LMPD used to enter Taylor's apartment. But, he was arrested just minutes earlier during a raid at another location as part of the same drug investigation.

CINCINNATI —

Cincinnati police body camera footage captured an intense encounter between a Mt. Airy man and a police officer.

It happened during a chaotic scene on Hawaiian Terrace in mid-May.

District five police officers responded to a call about kids fighting and a broken apartment window. That call almost turned into an officer-involved shooting.

"We had some juveniles who had thrown a brick through this young man's home window," said Officer Deon Mack, who responded to the scene. "In response to that, his juvenile ran outside and grabbed one of the kids and assaulted him. Well, then those children went and got their families and their friends of families."

The scene kept growing larger, and in the middle of the police response, Mack saw a man in a white shirt, who lived at the apartment with the broken window, calmly walk to his car and take a gun out of it.

"Hey! Put that s---- down. F--- wrong with you!? Put that s--- down. The f--- wrong with you?" Mack yelled with his gun drawn.

Police leadership said Mack's language was a tactic called "verbal stunning" to grab the man's attention quickly and de-escalate the situation.

"I wasn't gonna shoot," the man said.

"You almost made me have to do something to you. Why would you do that?" Mack said. "But why would you do that? That makes no sense."

The man did not point the weapon at anyone. At the time, there were several officers and juveniles with their backs turned to him.

"I was able to slow things down," Mack said. "When you're in the midst of it, you don't necessarily understand the gravity of the moment. You just know that I have to solve a problem."

Lt. Col. Mike John said Mack showed "remarkable restraint" in his actions and that his experience likely prevented a police shooting.

"If you call 911, you'd want Deon Mack to show up," he said. "There's no question another officer could have pulled their firearm, could have discharged their firearm at that individual. Probably would have been categorized as a justifiable shooting. It's a split-second decision, isn't it?"

"In this situation, just because I could, does not always mean I should," Mack said. "Once we've deescalated the situation down to a place where we can communicate, my point is to leave them better than I got them."

When reached by phone, the man with the gun said he regrets his actions, knows that he scared his family but emphasized that his only intent was to protect his family after he was threatened by people at the scene.

Mack said he wanted the man to learn from his actions, but did not want to punish him out of compassion for his family and the situation.

An additional four-minute encounter is captured on body camera footage of Mack talking to the man who is being detained inside a police cruiser.

"Understand this right? You did an incredibly stupid thing. I -- I just don't -- like with all the things we have going on in this country, for you to do that in front of 10 cops and multiple kids, multiple juveniles, for you to do that was such a grave disregard for your life, for our job and for these kids out here. Alright? That was horrible what you did. Ok? Because you almost forced me and many others to take your life, and that would not have been a cool thing when we came here to help you. We didn't come here to hurt you. We didn't come here to do that, but you almost forced us to do that. And that would have been so unfair, not only to you, not only to your family but to us," Mack said. "And today, to be honest with you, the only real reason you are being cut a break is because I really have compassion for your family, and I have compassion for your family because when we leave here, they need somebody to help protect them over these kids that are gonna be here."

"I lost my head. I'm sorry," the man responded through tears.

There was a collective sense of relief from Mack and from the man's family.

"His wife grabbed my hand and she said to me, thank you for bringing my husband home because you could have taken his life," Mack said.

He called the incident a team effort.