Police tase father to prevent him from rescuing son from house fire

Can somebody post a link to an actual news source? Not all of us can watch youtube.

reply to post by gardener


Money can't replace a child.
Police are a protected class.
I doubt justice will prevail in this case.
I feel for the parents. They seem like the type that would have been good ones if they had had the chance.

If the fire was getting out of hand I can understand why the cop would try and stop the father. But using the taser to do so is out of hand.

Raw story is reporting that the mom and dad fell asleep in the rec room and woke up to smoke filling the room.

They ran outside called 911 and tried to go back inside apparently after the police got there.
www.rawstory.com...

Firefighters were called just after midnight Thursday to the fire in Louisiana, Missouri, after Ryan and Cathy Miller awoke to find smoke in the recreation room where they’d fallen asleep watching television.

They were able to escape through a rear door and call 911, but the boy, Riley Miller, was still in his bedroom.

So my question is, how the hell do you go outside without getting your 3 year old kid first?

And why wait tell the cops get there to try and go back in?

Something smells fishy

reply to post by goou111


Your insinuations of bad parenting would be relevant, if the father had not tried to rush back inside, being tasered three times in the process.

You are reaching pretty far to defend the police action, as I have seen you do in similar threads. That type of thinking is no better than than those who jump to conclusions in order to condemn police officers.

There was a line here that was crossed. The officer's duties obligated him to advise the man against going back inside, but to stop him with physical force was an unnecessary denial of liberty. And tasering him three times?? That sounds like a control-freak with an injured ego to me.

If the cop was up to the job, he would have either gone in with the father to better assess the danger, or let the man go try and save his child.

reply to post by OpenMindedRealist


What? Show me one example of me defending the cops please?

Again how could you wake up to smoke in your house and your first thought not be get my 3 year old son?

reply to post by OpenMindedRealist

if the father had not tried to rush back inside, being tasered three times in the process.

That is my whole point why did he have to go "back in" at all?

he was already in there and left without his firkin kid

goou111

So my question is, how the hell do you go outside without getting your 3 year old kid first?

And why wait tell the cops get there to try and go back in?

Something smells fishy

edit on 4-11-2013 by goou111 because: (no reason given)

I agree with you. If it were me I would never have left the house without my son and would have died trying.

SiglenDyn
I agree with you. If it were me I would never have left the house without my son and would have died trying.

Everyone says that and you would be surprised how many times it doesn't happen.
I can give you a link to a story from a fire in NJ a few years ago on the Fourth of July where a father and mother left 3 kids in a burning house which in turn had 3 firemen go in after the kids and in the ultimate tragedy all 3 children and 3 firemen died. It's easy for people to sit here and say , "I would do X, Y or Z" when you are behind a keyboard, much harder to do when you are faced with those choices.

AS for the OP..
Without knowing how fully involved the house was it is hard to pass judgement on this. It's easy to say "Horrible COPs , you kept this man from saving his kid" much like people being shot doesn't look the way it does on TV house fires don't operate the way they do on TV.

Is their any information for what caused the Police to act the way they did? Anything about the state of the house when he was tazed?

How were people stopped from reentering a burning house before tazers. I am starting to believe that cops know that an abled bodied man can take them one on one/two.

reply to post by goou111


OpethPA beat me to it.

I am not a parent, but I could imagine that waking up to that situation would be a tremendous shock to the senses. Clearly, the father realized his error too late and desperately tried to correct it. Police have many responsibilities, but protecting a parent from his/her own desire to save a child should not be one of them.

Would your opinion change if it was revealed that the child was thought to be out of the house at the time? The truth is, extenuating circumstances such as that would not change the relevant facts.

seeker1963
reply to post by VforVendettea

 

Maybe the police saved this mans life, maybe they didn't.

One thing is for sure though, this father will spend the rest of his life being haunted by two words! "WHAT IF?"

As a father I know that would be true.
I would also be blaming the cop for not allowing me to try.
In my mind that would be the same as murdering my child.
I honestly don't know if I could handle that.

I didn't say they would know. When you read an article you have no idea how the situation went down. The father would rush in no matter what. The cops might well know if the child could be alive or not depending on the size of the fire the time it had already been burning. There is no reason to allow someone to commit suicide because they have lost a child. In fact it would be illegal for them not to stop him and I bet they would be liable. Poor family and a horrible choice to have to make.

reply to post by goou111

So my question is, how the hell do you go outside without getting your 3 year old kid first?

And why wait tell the cops get there to try and go back in?

Something smells fishy

I would think they either panicked or the fire prevented them from reaching the child so they tried an alternate entry. Mother on the phone with 911, Dad trying to get to the kid.

I think the cops probably got there while he was trying to get back in. Cops don't always take forever to show up. Possible a few got there pretty quick.

I agree, something does seem off. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Wouldn't surprise me if by the time the cops showed up it was clearly a lost cause and they were trying to save the guys life. I don't know how to feel about that. It's a tough call to make, especially while I'm sitting here all comfortable at home. I certainly don't think the police restrained him for any reason other than saving his life. I just don't know if he could have gotten to his child or if they would have had two victims.

Ah, but you always have to turn the thing around. What if it was a cop in there? What would happen to a bystander if he tazed a cop to prevent him from injuring himself trying to rescue a cop that was in the building?

I can tell you - it would be assault with a deadly weapon and manslaughter of the cop inside the building. Funny how that only works one way.

Domo1
I agree, something does seem off. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Wouldn't surprise me if by the time the cops showed up it was clearly a lost cause and they were trying to save the guys life. I don't know how to feel about that

I bet it's a lot simpler and sadder than that. Once a cop arrives on the scene, he "takes charge". It's policy NOT to allow anyone into a burning house, no matter what stage the fire is at. It could be the curtains in the kitchen and no other involvement, and that Dad is not going back in there, or it's Taser time.

And for damn sure the COP is not going in. So if there's kids upstairs and it's still safe to get them, the cop will act according to policy and prevent it. If the fire department doesn't show in time, the kids will die, savable or no.

eta: that means, basically, you get everyone out and then call 911. If you call 911, anyone in the house will die by cop edict, if the cops arrive first and the fire department does not.

reply to post by Bedlam


Well isn't that just beyond sad?! Thank you for that tid bit of information. I hopefully will never be in this situation, however should I ever find myself in this situation I will do my best to remember this info in all the chaos and pack I'm sure will be happening. Honestly I don't know whether to laugh or cry, that is just horrific to think about!

As far as the case in question here, tazing the father once was excessive force, three times is downright torture, period, end of discussion! I have witnessed law enforcement physically restrain people from running back into burning buildings, but to TAZE this man is unconscionable even one time.

I can understand how some of you think you may have acted differently in the situation, but as stated by others, it wasn't you in the situation. Smoke inhalation affects more than just your lungs, it affects your brain which is where all your reasoning and rational thought is formulated. To wake up... WAKE UP in a room filled with smoke means you had already been breathing that smoke in deeply while in the most relaxed state, where you breathe the most deeply. The parents acted on sheer survival instinct.

Shame on these police officers for use of such force and shame on anyone who dares to claim they would have done "better" without having been in the situation themselves. I hope this family can find healing and I hope the child died in it's sleep and never felt the heat of that fire which took his life.

reply to post by goou111


Fire could of been blocking the doorway out of the room. Its states that they had to escape through another door.

Its most likley that there was flames stopping them getting quick access through the house to their child.
He came out of the house and tried to use another way in to save his child.