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Police stun stepdad trying to save son from fire


ST. LOUIS (AP) - The family of a 3-year-old killed in a northern Missouri house fire is outraged after police used a stun gun on the boy's stepfather as he tried to run back in and save the child.

Riley Jeffrey Rieser Miller died early Oct. 31 in the Mississippi River town of Louisiana. A city police officer fired his stun gun at Ryan Miller, 31, as he tried to re-enter his burning home, according to a city official. The house was destroyed.

Lori Miller said she witnessed two officers use their stun guns on her son a total of three times, twice after Ryan Miller had been handcuffed. The final time, he was in a police squad car, she said. "It was police brutality," said Miller, adding that she was also threatened with arrest. "We're still trying to mourn."

City Administrator Bob Jenne called the police response a "judgment call." Jenne said Thursday that he is waiting to review a police report from the fire. Emily Miller said the police response directed at her brother-in-law was "heartless."

Jenne said the fire started in an electrical outlet in the rear recreation room where Riley's parents fell asleep watching television. By the time they awoke, smoke and flames prevented Ryan and Cathy Miller from reaching their son, whose bedroom was at the front of the house. They fled through the back, with Ryan Miller trying unsuccessfully to re-enter the home before the second attempt that led to his arrest.

Jenne said a firefighter tried save Riley, but the house was too hot to enter. Miller was taken to the city jail and released without being charged. He and his wife were later treated for minor burns at an Illinois hospital.

Lori Miller said the family is considering legal action against the city. And Jenne said he expects a lawsuit. Jenne, who has served as a police officer and firefighter as well as a police chief in suburban St. Louis, said Thursday that he is waiting to review a police report from the fire.

Calls to the Louisiana police department were referred back to Jenne. The officer in the incident has not been placed on leave. "Ultimately, their concern was that he himself might become a casualty of the fire as well," Jenne said of Ryan Miller.

Lori Miller said her son was preparing to adopt Riley. The family had lived in the rental home, which was within walking distance of the home of Ryan Miller's parents, for eight months.

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160 Sheep Stolen From Town Called 'Wool'

LONDON -- LONDON (AP) - Wool's wool is missing.

Police in southwest England appealed for help Tuesday in tracking down thieves who made off with 160 sheep from a field near the village of Wool.

Police say the sheep were stolen between Saturday and Monday, and that the thieves would have needed a large vehicle to move the woolly haul.

Constable Adam Taylor says all of the sheep were electronically tagged.

He is urging anyone who has witnessed suspicious activity - or been offered sheep "in unusual circumstances or for very low prices" - to come forward.

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Student wedged between New York buildings for up to two days is freed

(Reuters) - A college student reported missing by friends was recovering on Monday after being pulled from a narrow space between two buildings in New York City, where he had been trapped for up to two days, fire officials said.

Asher Vongtau, 19, an undergraduate at New York University, was found conscious and moaning Sunday afternoon after somehow becoming wedged in a crevice between a five-story parking garage and a 17-story dormitory building in Lower Manhattan, university officials said.

It took firefighters 90 minutes to extract Vongtau from an approximately 18-inch-wide gap between the buildings. Crews had to drill through a cinderblock wall to get to him, according to a spokesman with the New York City Fire Department.

He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition, the spokesman said. On Monday, his condition was reported to be serious.

The only way into the gap appeared to be from the roofs of the buildings.

"The circumstances of how the student came to be in this space are unclear to us," John Beckman, vice president for Public Affairs at NYU, said in a statement.

Vongtau was not a resident of the building where he was discovered, Beckman said. He declined to confirm local media reports that the student was from Nigeria.

Vongtau's friends had first reported him missing on Saturday and campus police were able to narrow down his whereabouts by tracing where he had used his electronic ID card for entry.

While searching the dormitory, a public safety officer found some of Vongtau's possessions and then discovered him stuck and groaning in the crevice.

It was not yet known how long he had been wedged in the space.

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