There are times when the wheels of justice seem to turn too slowly, and a parent's drive to protect his or her own children becomes a blinding and uncontrollable rage. For one Florida father, fists of fury seemed to act more quickly than the long arm of the law.
If you have spent any time on social media, you have likely seen the swollen, battered, bloody, and misshapen face of 18-year-old Raymond Frolander (Image credit: Volusia County Corrections). Frolander is accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy, and when the boy's father literally caught Frolander with his pants down, he grabbed the teen and beat him unconscious.
The man told reporters that he intended to kill his son's molester, and went to the kitchen to get a knife. His son, however, stopped him from making such a critical and life-changing decision.
Instead, the father picked up the phone and called 9-1-1.
In the 911 call, the father tells a dispatcher, "I just walked in on a grown man molesting [my son], and I got him in a bloody puddle for you right now, officer."
When the dispatcher asked if weapons were involved in taking down the boy's abuser, the father replied, "My fist and my foot."
Clearly, that was all that was needed to stop the assault. The father told the emergency dispatcher to not only send police, but also to "send an ambulance. He's going to need one."
The father says that Frolander was a family friend whom he trusted with his son. After the sexual assault, which Frolander allegedly admitted, the young victim told police that Frolander had attempted to molest him once before, approximately three years ago.
The victim's father does not face any charges in the beating of his son's abuser. Instead, Daytona Beach Police Chief Michael Chitwood said he did not have any problem with the father's actions: "Not as a police chief, and not as a father." Chitwood furthered that the "father acted as a father should act."
Frolander is being held without bond on a complaint of sexual battery of a child under 12. In Oklahoma, the equivalent offense is lewd acts with a child under 16. The penalty for lewd acts with a minor in Oklahoma is 3 to 20 years in prison if the victim is aged 12 or older, but when the victim is under the age of 12, as alleged in the Frolander case, the sentence is 20 years to life.
Despite the rearrangement of his face and the sex offender conviction possibly before him, Frolander can be grateful things are not worse. Two years ago, a Texas rancher discovered a man raping his 5-year-old daughter. The father pulled the man, Jesus Flores, off of the girl and beat him so badly that the man died. The father did not intend to kill the man and even called 911 for medical help, saying, "I need an ambulance. This guy was raping my daughter and I don't know what to do," and asking the authorities to hurry: "Come on! This guy is going to die on me!"
The father was not charged in that case, with the district attorney citing state law that authorizes and justifies the use of lethal force in stopping an aggravated sexual assault.
