Police Taze Dad Trying to Save Son While Burning in a House Fire, Twice After He Was Handcuffed.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

The City Administrator for the river town of Louisiana, Mississipi said that a house fire started in an electrical outlet while a 3-year old boy's parents had fallen asleep. By the time they awoke, smoke and flames prevented them from reaching their son whose bedroom was at the front of the house. They fled through the back and the father tried to re-enter the home from the front.

A firefighter also tried to save the toddler, but the house was too hot for him to enter.

While the child was burning and the father, age 31, was trying to get back into the house, one of the cops zapped him with a Taser. His mother saw them zap her son three times, twice after they put handcuffs on him. The last time was after they put handcuffs on him and had him in the back of one of their squad cars.

What's response from the City Administrator?

"City Administrator Bob Jenne called the police response a 'judgment call.' Jenne said Thursday that he is waiting to review a police report from the fire."

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Police-stun-stepdad-trying-to-save-son-from-fire-4964175.php

They didn't discipline the cop in any way. They didn't even put him on paid leave.

[Barack_America]

1. I see it as my right to risk my life trying to save my child.

Easier to die that way than to live with the knowledge I couldn't help him.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Is it your right

to endanger the lives of police and/or firefighters who would be obligated to follow you?

[Barack_America]

5. They didn't go in after the boy...

...having determined it was too dangerous. Why would they have any obligation to go in after me?

[Cirque du So-What]

6. Regardless

Police/fire/EMS are not going to stand idly by when someone is attempting to gain entry to a house on fire, which is undoubtedly an irrational act.

[Barack_America]

8. I'm sitting here now, with my son safe in his bed, saying that I would do it.

Am I being irrational?

We celebrate soldiers who march into certain death for country, but we taze parents who try to do the same for their kids?

Tell me how that makes sense.

[Savannahmann]

10. Perhaps Irrantional, but very Biological

How many times have we read about an animal that died trying to save it's offspring? How many times have we heard about a man or woman who died trying to save their children? Every year, someone gets lost, kidnapped, or disappears and search parties fan out to try and find them, often risking life and limb in the effort.

To paraphrase an old saying. There is no greater love than a parent who dies trying to protect a child.

The Police/Fire/EMS were standing around idly as the child died in the fire. They felt unable to help. The man may have died, and may not have. Tasing the man after he was in handcuffs is the definition of abuse, and torture.

Isn't this the part where you are supposed to post the picture of the cop stealing the milk from the family in Watertown?

[Th1onein]

12. Tasing the man after he was in handcuffs is the definition of abuse, and torture.

Yep.

[Beaverhausen]

15. Firemen were trying to put the fire out

One did try to enter the home but it was just too dangerous. They were not standing idly by.

[Savannahmann]

16. My comment was in response to the reply

In which the poster said that if he had gone into the house, the firemen/police/ems would be unable to stand idly by. Thus trying to paint the events as self protection for those same police/firefighters/ems. In reality, once the man was in handcuffs, and they continued to use the taser, they were torturing the man. That is the point that I think we're missing.

[KansDem]

19. The police have no duty to protect you...

Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone

WASHINGTON, June 27 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.

The decision, with an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia and dissents from Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, overturned a ruling by a federal appeals court in Colorado. The appeals court had permitted a lawsuit to proceed against a Colorado town, Castle Rock, for the failure of the police to respond to a woman's pleas for help after her estranged husband violated a protective order by kidnapping their three young daughters, whom he eventually killed.

For hours on the night of June 22, 1999, Jessica Gonzales tried to get the Castle Rock police to find and arrest her estranged husband, Simon Gonzales, who was under a court order to stay 100 yards away from the house. He had taken the children, ages 7, 9 and 10, as they played outside, and he later called his wife to tell her that he had the girls at an amusement park in Denver.

Ms. Gonzales conveyed the information to the police, but they failed to act before Mr. Gonzales arrived at the police station hours later, firing a gun, with the bodies of the girls in the back of his truck. The police killed him at the scene.

--more--
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0

So why would they stop the father from trying to rescue his son?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

13. Is that what the father was doing when he was sitting in the back of the squad car, in handcuffs?

Your it's-ok-to-taze-the-father-because-he-was-endagering-the-lives-of-police-and/or-firefighters logic doesn't hold up.

[JI7]

7. the firefighters probably knew he had no chance of making it out alive

if he went in.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Tragic as this story is

it could have been worse if the father had gained access to a part of the house that was too hot for a firefighter in turn-out gear. Tasering him may seem excessive, but his state of mind required immediate action.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

14. Since his name isn't Houdini, is there any way that the cop could think that the father could escape

from handcuffs after being placed in the squad car?

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. awful

[kcr]

9. I can understand preventing him from going in.

But the tazering, especially after he was handcuffed. That is just wrong. And then the arrest and charges. Just cruel and heartless.

[Savannahmann]

11. As if we expect anything else from the Police

Modern police are brutality incarnate. Modern police have become the true enemy of society. They lie, cheat, and are protected by the system. When I am on a jury, the last person I believe in the courtroom, is the cop.

[Cirque du So-What]

17. Everyone

Somehow, I missed the part where he was tased after being placed in the back of the police car. I saw 'handcuffs' and that was it. That was undoubtedly abuse on the part of the cop, and he deserves at least to be fired. Sorry for being so obtuse, but that one detail escaped me earlier.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

18. Kudos for having the integrity to post this.

Heart ripping story all around.