Raymond Frolander: Did Dad Have The Right To Beat The Accused Rapist To A Pulp?

Raymond Frolander’s bloodied and swollen face in a mugshot picture went viral recently after he was allegedly caught raping an 11-year-old boy by the boy’s father. The father beat the 18-year-old within an inch of his life and called emergency services afterward early Friday morning.

WKMG reports that the Daytona Beach man told investigators that he walked in when Frolander was abusing his son. The end result of this revelation ended with Raymond unconscious on the living room floor, suffering from several knots on his face and bleeding. Frolander later admitted that he had abused the boy, according to an arrest affidavit.

The boy told child protective services that the abuse had been happening since he was 8 years old. The father of the boy trusted Frolander to babysit his child and had left him alone with the boy in the past.

When the father called 911 after he beat Raymond Frolander, he admitted that he knocked him out with “my foot and my fist.”

He told the 911 dispatcher, “He is nice and knocked out on the floor for you. I drug him out to the living room.”

The father is not facing any charges related to the incident, according to CBS News.

“Dad was acting like a dad. I don’t see anything we should charge the dad with,” Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood explained. “You have an 18-year-old who has clearly picked his target, groomed his target and had sex with the victim multiple times.”

Some people who commented on the viral story side with the father and even go a step further to explain that the officers would not have had a living person to arrest. Many admitted that they would have killed any person who sexually assaulted their child.

While it is clear that emotions are heavily involved in the case, some people are wondering if the father has a legal right to beat Raymond Frolander unconscious.

The boy’s father clearly believed that he had a right to beat Frolander, but not to kill him.

“He stood up and his pants were around his ankles and nothing else needed to be said,” the father explained. “I did whatever I got a right to do except I didn’t kill him.”

The man was heard on the 911 emergency call tape saying, “You are damn lucky boy that I love my God.”

But did the man truly have the right to attack Raymond Frolander after he found him assaulting his child? According to Online Sunshine, the official internet site of the Florida legislature, the man absolutely had the right to use force in the defense of his child.

The statute states, “A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force.”

The statute also states when a person has the right to use deadly force, but this is typically reserved for those who reasonably feel that they are facing imminent death. Had the case of Raymond Frolander turned out differently and a trip to the morgue instead of the hospital occurred, the man who beat him may have faced charges.

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