A neighbor stopped three-month-old twins from being drowned by shooting an alleged perpetrator to death.
The domestic incident unfolded June 2 when the father, 27-year-old Ada, Oklahoma, resident Leland Foster, forced his way into the home where the children and her mother were at the time. Michelle Sorells, the mother of the children, said Foster pushed her aside, choked her, and held her at knife point as she tried to protect her children while he was attempting to drown them in the bathtub. A 12-year-old youth, also present in the house, ran to a neighbor’s home for help.
Sorrells told CBS affiliate KXII that Foster forced himself inside her stepfather’s home after the two got in an argument. She says she believes Foster “snapped.” “I’m being plowed into and I go flying a couple of feet into the house and he charges past me and goes to my children laying in the pack-n-play,” she said.
That’s when the neighbor, Cash Freeman, burst into the home and fired two shots, killing Foster. Thanks to the quick-thinking 12-year-old and the gun-toting neighbor, the babies were saved. Police have not filed charges against Freeman, but the district attorney will decide whether it was justifiable homicide.The babies were airlifted to a local hospital and were doing well.
According to the Washington Post, in 2011 Foster was charged with arson and domestic violence by strangulation in the first degree. Then Foster was accused of choking his ex-girlfriend and setting clothes on fire inside an apartment. Police found the bathtub filled with water and electronics. He pleaded no contest.
This could have gone another way. The attacker could have had a gun and innocents could have been shot or killed. Foster was clearly deranged and Freeman had the presence of mind to protect his neighbors. How many of us know our neighbors? Would we be ready to run out the door to defend them or their children like Cash Freeman did? Freeman is a young man, with his whole life ahead of him. He had a firearm, he acted, he protected.
There are no indications that anyone called 911 anytime during this horrifying situation. Was there time? It’s doubtful. The family has said not a day will go by that they won’t think of Freeman and how he saved their family.
