The Father's Reaction

In the US a man was taken before the grand jury for murdering a man who was assaulting his daughter. Here is a news account:

“Hearing his 5-year-old daughter sobbing from behind a warehouse, a father ran and found out the unthinkable: A man assaulting her. The father grabbed the man off his daughter, authorities say, and started thrashing him to death with his fists.

“With his daughter eventually safe, the father frantically called 911, asking a dispatcher to find his rural farm and send an ambulance.

“Come on! This guy is going to die on me!" the man is heard sobbing on the 911 call. "I don't understand what to do!"

“A recording of the tape was played during a news convention Tuesday where the Lavaca County district attorney and sheriff declared openly that the father will not endure charges.

“In decreasing to impeach the 23-year-old father in the June 9 murder of Jesus Mora Flores, a Lavaca County grand jury reached the same finding as investigators and many of the father's neighbors: he was ratified to use fatal force to safeguard his daughter.

"Sadly, a man had to expire," said Michael James Veit, 48, who lives across the street from where the assault occurred in this little community-run on ranching and the Shiner beer brewery. "But I think anybody would have committed that."

“The family ranch is so distant that on the 911 tape, the father is heard profanely shouting at a dispatcher who couldn't find the property. At one point, he tells the dispatcher he's going to put the man in his truck and drive him to a hospital."

“He's going to die!" the father yells, swearing at the dispatcher. "He's going to fucking die!"

“The tense, the nearly five-minute call starts with the father saying he "beat up" a man found assaulting his daughter. The father thrives increasingly agitated, yelling into the phone so loudly at times that the call often becomes indistinct.

“The Associated Press is not specifying the father to ensure the daughter's individuality. The AP commonly does not specify sufferers of sexual attack.

"He's a peaceful soul," V'Anne Huser, the father's attorney, told reporters at the Lavaca County courthouse. "He had no motive to murder anybody that day."

“The attack happened on the family's farm off a calm, two-lane county road between the agriculture villages of Shiner and Yoakum. A statement disclosed by the district attorney said an observer who saw Flores "forcibly carrying" the little girl into a remote area rushed to find the father. Running toward his daughter's cries, the father grabbed Flores off his child and "inflicted several hits to the man's head and neck area," detectives said.

“Emergency staff reacting to the father's 911 call found Flores' pants and underwear pulled down on his corpse. The girl was examined at a hospital, and Lavaca County district attorney Heather McMinn said forensic information and witness reports verified the father's story that his daughter was being sexually assaulted.

“The father was never charged, but the killing was investigated as a homicide.

“Philip Hilder, a Houston criminal defense attorney, and the former federal prosecutor told he would have been shocked if the grand jury had agreed to charge the father. Hilder announced Texas law gives several explanations for the use of deadly force, including if someone commits a sexual attack.

"The grand jury was not about to accuse this father of protecting his daughter," he explained.

Authorities told the family had hired Flores before to help with horses on the farm. Attempts to discover Flores' relatives through public reports were unsuccessful.