SAN ANTONIO, Tex.—The use of force in restraining people who do nothing except to “refuse to obey a direct order” from an officer of the law may have been the cause of the death of an infant in San Antonio June 2, 2013.
Two of three children staying with their grandparents were able to escape with the grandparents, but the couple couldn’t or didn’t get the 8-month-old baby still inside. The father arrived on scene as the flames were still pouring from the structure and, realizing his infant son was still there, went to rush in but was stopped by police on-scene. As is usually the case, the police, realizing the man was not going to be restrained, reportedly ordered the man to “stop resisting!” and when he did not, they hit him with a TASER (a Thomas A. Swift Electronic Rifle; so many media outlets have taken to calling it “tasing” or saying they “tased” him, but that’s inappropriate; people need to remember that this was developed as an “electronic rifle” and the acronym was pinned to it in honor of the guy who developed the sadistic piece of machinery, so we here at Disclosure use the acronym in full, and always will, regardless of what comes to the lexicon of the English language in the future). Many of our citizens have been TASERed in our coverage area, and we’d guess that nearly 90 percent of them hadn’t needed to be. One young man in Lawrence County died about a week after being TASERed in the courthouse in 2007, dead of a heart fibrillation problem in his mid-20s. Medical experts told us that indeed, the TASERing could have started an irregular heartbeat that took its toll on him days later. But there was nothing official ever put out about that matter and it all went by the wayside, as many TASERings do.
There’s a very poorly-written account of the Texas incident at Intelihub; there are few other links with any more elaboration to be found, but this link at Newsmax seems to give a little more detail of how the whole thing went down, including indicating that the father’s father (the grandfather) also tried to go in and was restrained, but apparently not TASERed.
Of course, the infant boy died in the fire. Could his father have saved him? Maybe. It was that man’s choice and his alone to go into those flames, however; many feel he should NOT have been held back by law enforcement officials ‘just doing their jobs’ to ‘serve and protect.’
So the question arises: should law enforcement have done what they did to this now-grieving father under such a life-or-death situation, and should he have been allowed to make that decision for himself in an effort to save his baby? Or are we now at a stage with our highly litigious society, so quick to sue public officials in the course of their duties (and believe it, many of them deserve it), that this is what we’ve wrought upon ourselves? When does forcing the will of “the law” on the people cease to be appropriate, and people be allowed to use their own force of will to make decisions in their lives?