Cops pepper spray, arrest father after he overreacted to seeing EMT’s drop his daughter’s body

Joplin, MO – Kevin Russell and his son Brant were ruthlessly pepper-sprayed by police after they overreacted to the sight of EMT’s dropping their daughter’s body off of a medical gurney.

On March 17th, Kevin returned home with his family to find his daughter, Brooke, had shot herself in the head in the park near their home. They rushed her body to a local police station to meet up with an ambulance in order to get her to the hospital faster. But then Kevin saw the EMT’s handling her body drop her to the floor.

Kevin told KSPR, ‘I started screaming and said ‘do your f*****g job, get her to the hospital,’ and the EMT put his finger in my face and said ‘calm down sir.’ I was screaming ‘please get her to the hospital. ‘I was on the pavement, I couldn’t breathe and another officer put a knee in my back and told me to get up and he said if I didn’t get up he was going to tase me,’ Brant said.

The father understandably flipped out and began yelling at the EMT, when officers stepped in and began pepper spraying him and his son, Brant. They fell to the pavement, choking, coughing and crying as their family member lay dying in front of them. They were arrested and faced with three counts of misdemeanors — assault, disturbing the peace and obstruction.

Joplin Police Chief Lane Roberts said, “What I’ll tell you is that the conduct that’s alleged is directly contradictory to our values, our mission statement, our code of ethics,” the chief said.  “Those are not the things we engage in.”

Now the family is taking their story to the media for help.

“I would just like the charges to go away.  I want the reports reported correctly.  I know they’re not going to do that but I hate that there’s something in formal writing that says things that we did that we didn’t do on the worst night of our life,” Russell said.