Silke Jasso
A man who heard cries for help in an Ada, Okla., home over the weekend and responded with deadly force to the attempted drowning of 3-month-old twins has all of his neighbors on his side.
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A 12-year-old niece of the twins’ mother was the one who called 911 when she saw Leland Foster armed with a knife and attempting to drown his infant twins.
You can listen to that phone call above.
Before police got to the scene, neighbor Cash Freeman responded to cries for help by shooting Foster in the back twice, killing him. Foster had also been threatening the mother of the children with a knife.
After the shooting, Freeman said that he believed he did the right thing, and his neighbors are now saying “there better not be charges.”
“I think he did the right thing, […] because who knows what would have happened to the babies if he hadn’t intervened?” neighbor Summer Pierce told NewsChannel 4. “They might not have made it.”
The step-grandfather of the twins agreed, calling Freeman a “guardian angel.”
“If he hadn’t done it just plain and simple we’d be planning four funerals,” Jeremy Burris said. “I don’t wish this on anybody. Nobody should have to go through this at all. I’m just glad that my granddaughter was able to get help and our guardian angel was our neighbor.”
Another local, Kathy Hart, told KFOR that authorities “better not file charges” against Freeman.
“Because, he protected two innocent babies that couldn’t protect themselves. How can he be guilty of anything? He’s a hero. He should not be in trouble,” she said.
The mother of the twins said the same.
RELATED: Oklahoma authorities announce fate of man who shot three robbers with an AR-15 in his home
Michell Sorrells spoke to KXII and said she believed Foster “snap[ped]” at the thought of not having “me or his children in his life for a while,” indicating that Sorrells had attempted to remove herself from an abusive situation. “I remember thinking, I’ve got to keep hitting him […] to keep him […] I’ve got to get back to the babies because he turned them face down in the water again and they’re going to drown.'”
“He saved me and my babies’ lives and there will not be a day that will go by that I won’t thank him for that,” she said of Freeman.
Police have interviewed Freeman and he is a free man. They have, at this time, no intention of bringing charges against him.
Foster had a history of violence. In 2011, he was charged with domestic abuse by strangulation and arson in the first degree, to which he pleaded no contest.
In April, another high-profile case of deadly force in Oklahoma was ruled to be self-defense.
Police announced that 23-year-old Zachary Peters would face no charges for shooting and killing three armed teenage robbers with an AR-15 in his home.
Police said “It was clear he operated completely within the law when he used deadly force.”
