Just passing this along for your edification via Twitter, where people are sharing the link and many virtual high-fives. I use the word “allegedly” in the headline loosely because, per the report, the accused molester ‘fessed up after the cops were done peeling him off the floor.

Reminds me of a similar story from Texas two years ago about a dad who caught some degenerate molesting his little girl and beat him literally to death. He was remorseful; the dad in today’s story is … less so.

Asked if any weapons were involved, the father said “my foot and my fist.”…

The child told investigators that he was playing video games with friends but after the friends left, Frolander asked the boy to sit in his lap and then took him to a back room, the report said.

Frolander then pulled the boy’s pants down and started sexually battering him, the boy told police, adding that Frolander had been abusing him since he was 8 years old, investigators said…

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

“You are damn lucky boy that I love my God,” the man said on the telephone to 9-1-1.

“I’m guilty,” said Frolander when questioned by police, according to the arrest affidavit. The boy’s father hasn’t been charged — but could he be? Here’s what Florida law says about using force when coming to the defense of another person:

776.012 Use of force in defense of person.—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. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:

(1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or

(2) Under those circumstances permitted pursuant to s. 776.013.

The particulars of the law don’t much matter — no jury in America is going to convict the dad, especially since he stopped short of killing the perp — but obviously he qualifies for this defense. All he has to do is show that he “reasonably believed” he needed to use force to stop the attack; given that a rapist caught in the act and facing a loooong sentence is apt to be desperate and behave unpredictably, no one’s seriously going to dispute that force was necessary to neutralize him. If the dad had gone apesh*t and continued beating the guy even after he was out cold, to the point where he actually killed him, a prosecutor might have toyed (briefly) with a voluntary manslaughter charge. But c’mon: Who’s going to convict a parent for being overzealous in protecting their child from a predator caught in the act? Dad could have tossed this guy off a building “Untouchables”-style and people would be talking about him as a third-party candidate for mayor. When you walk in on your kid being raped, you get the benefit of the doubt.