Police officers in Chandler, Arizona, are being questioned for kicking down a family’s front door and taking their children after a doctor reported that one of them had a fever.
Shocking video shows the Chandler police with guns drawn breaking down the front door of a home owned by Chandler resident Brooks Bryce:
The police were involved after a doctor at a local clinic called the Arizona Department of Child Safety to report that the child had a “life-threatening” fever. The child is also unvaccinated, according to reports.
But the child’s mother, Sarah Beck, insisted that after the doctor saw the child, the boy’s fever broke and was going down. As the threat of danger was eliminated, the parents said, they decided not to take their child to the emergency room because the cost of the visit would be too great.
“For me to take my healthy son to the emergency room would have cost me $2,500. We don’t have $2,500 sitting around to take our healthy son to the hospital,” Brooks Bryce told 12 News:
The video of the police action was shocking enough for Arizona State Rep. Kelly Townsend to call for an investigation.
“That is not the country that I recognize,” Townsend said after seeing the video of the police breaking down the Bryce family door.
“At that point who now owns control over the child?” Townsend wondered.
“And it seems like we’ve given that now to the doctor and the parent no longer has the say, or they risk the SWAT team taking all of your children and potentially the newborn,” she said, adding that the police action was a “mistake” and that the system needs to be reviewed.
Meanwhile, authorities have yet to return the children to their parents.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.