A judge has ruled in the favor of TikToker Emilie Kiser after she requested to block certain records about her three-year-old son's death from the public.
Kiser, an influencer online with over four million followers on TikTok, has won the legal case she filed after her son, Trigg, fell into the swimming pool at their Arizona home and was sadly pronounced dead six days later.
Trigg initially fell into the pool on 12 May, with paramedics performing CPR on the toddler before he was taken to Chandler Regional Hospital.
He was then transported via air to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, before he passed away on May 18.
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At the time, authorities also recommended that the influencer's husband Brady face child abuse charges, though this was dropped two weeks ago by police.
The father claimed to have lost sight of their son for up to five minutes while the couple tended to their newborn.
According to a Chandler Police Department report, Trigg was ‘playing around the unsecured pool and unable to swim.’
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"It is clear from the video that he did not go into the water intentionally, rather, he tripped and fell in while playing with an inflatable chair," the report claimed.
Trigg was in ‘the backyard unsupervised for more than nine minutes’, and the report states he was in the water for approximately seven minutes.
Kiser filed a lawsuit on May 27 against Maricopa County public offices in a bid to protect the records regarding her son.
According to The Independent, there were over 100 public record requests made with the city of Chandler and the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office, which the suit called a 'profound invasion of privacy' which would cause 'irreparable harm' to Kiser’s family.
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Various municipal offices were named as defendants in the suit, such as the city of Chandler, the Chandler Police Department and Maricopa County.
Part of the lawsuit read: "Emilie and her family desperately want to grieve in private, but sadly, the public will not let them. Trigg's death has become a media frenzy."
NBC News reported Kiser did not review any of the requested documents, nor did she want to.
The documents include surveillance footage of the incident, body camera footage, autopsy reports, as well as the police report.
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Now, the Arizona Superior Court for Maricopa County ruled that Kiser is able to redact two pages from a Chandler Police Department report, allowing her to keep some privacy surrounding her son and his death.
"The transcript on the disputed sections are not necessary for public accountability," Judge Christopher Whitten wrote on August 8. "Its disclosure would serve no purpose other than satisfying morbid curiosity."
Responding to the brief, Kiser’s lawyer, Shannon Clark, said the mom is ‘grateful to Judge Whitten for carefully balancing the important interests at stake and allowing a narrow but meaningful redaction to the Chandler police report, removing two pages that detail the graphic final moments of Trigg’s life.’
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"These redactions do not alter any material facts of the accident," the attorney told E! News in a statement. "But they protect the dignity of a little boy whose memory should reflect the love and light he brought to the world."
While Kiser’s legal team said the redaction would help to prevent his death being used as content, particularly as it contains Trigg's final moments and graphic details, Michael Kelley, an attorney for The Arizona Republic newspaper, said her filings would redact ‘information and context that is critical to provide the public a reasonably full understanding of the investigation of the drowning, the police department's decision to recommend criminal charges and the county attorney's decision not to pursue criminal charges.’
For now, this means that reporters and the public will be unable to know some of the details regarding Trigg.
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact The Compassionate Friends on (877) 969-0010.
Topics: US News
Britt Jones