Little Heber's doctor reported the boy's family to DCS after they didn't take him to the emergency room when he had a high fever.
With guns drawn, cops raided an Arizona family's home, breaking down the door and barging in — because the parents didn't take their toddler son to the emergency room.
So what happened? It began when the boy's mother, Sarah Beck, took him to the doctor with a high fever last month. Beck's son, Heber, has never been vaccinated and the doctor was fearful that he might be suffering from meningitis amid outbreaks around the country, so it was recommended that Heber taken to the ER.
But after Beck left with Heber, she said, he got better. His fever, which measured as high as 105 degrees at the doctor's office, Beck told local NBC affiliate KPNX. When they left, however, she said she stopped a pharmacy, where she measured Heber's temperature again and saw it had dropped to 102.
"So I called the doctor back and said, ‘Hey, I’m not sure how you got this 105 reading, my son’s acting fine. This doesn’t really seem like a medical emergency,'” Beck said.
Though the doctor urged Beck to go to the ER anyway, she took Heber home. When the ER called the office to report that the boy had never arrived, the doctor called the Department of Child Safety and asked them to check on Heber.
In turn, a DCS investigator called police, who then went to the home on Feb. 25 Though they knocked over and over, the family didn't open the door, according to KPNX. When they called, Beck's husband and the boy's dad, Brooks Bryce, answered and said Heber was doing fine and asked police to go away.
"There's no reason for me to give up my kid because he has a temperature of 100 degrees," said Bryce.
DCS obtained a court order, and when the family still refused them entry, police broke down the door to get Heber, a stunning moment captured on surveillance footage.
Beck and Bryce claim they were treated like criminals. "I mean, I don’t know what kind of trauma that did to my kids," she said.
According to the police report on the incident, officers found that other children in the home had vomited in their beds and the house was a mess.
Attorney Nicholas Boca, who's representing Beck, told Inside Edition: "She's a mom, she knows how to take a child's temperature ... and the doctor in this case absolutely crossed the line."
He added that police had no need to storm the home the way they did. "That type of force is reserved for violent criminals, not a good family that has appropriately cared for their children," Boca said.
"It was absolutely ridiculous."
The boy and his two sisters are now staying with their grandparents.
RELATED STORIES
