Brandon Rogers appears at sentencing after being convicted of shocking his 7-year-old son with a Taser at the family’s Springfield, Ore., home (KVAL/YouTube).
An Oregon father, 45, has been sentenced to decades in prison for torturing his 7-year-old son, including repeatedly shocking the child with a Taser in what prosecutors described as punishment.
Brandon Rogers was ordered Friday to serve more than 45 years behind bars. A jury convicted him earlier this month on nearly 60 counts, including multiple charges of second-degree assault, first-degree criminal mistreatment and menacing.
The Springfield Police Department opened the child abuse investigation in September 2024 after receiving a report involving the boy, who was 7 at the time. Authorities said the child had “multiple injuries all over his body.”
Investigators initially determined that Rogers and the boy’s mother, Heather Black, now 38, abused the child on two separate occasions by shocking him with a Taser. But police said surveillance footage from inside the home revealed the abuse was even “more heinous,” showing Rogers and Black “physically abusing their son multiple times a day for multiple days in a row using a Taser and other weapons.”
Authorities also said the couple repeatedly menaced their 4-year-old daughter with the Taser.
During sentencing, Lane County Circuit Judge Charles Zennaché detailed some of what the boy was forced to endure. In one instance, the child was made to hold a “push-up” position while the rest of the family sat down to eat dinner.
“When [he] starts to drop, Dad tases him and yells at him,” Zennaché said, according to a courtroom report from the Eugene-Springfield Lookout. “No adult did anything about it at any time, and it was shocking to me.”
The judge described Rogers’ actions as “deliberate cruelty” and “frankly torture” inflicted by someone who should have been giving his son “solace and strength.”
Rogers’ attorney blamed her client’s actions on a “very, very violent childhood,” saying he suffered “daily beatings from his own father.” Rogers plans to appeal the sentence.
The two children have since been adopted, prosecutors said, per the Lookout. One of the adoptive parents addressed the court, saying the children are “terrified to tell the truth when they make mistakes.”
About a year ago, they would curl up in a ball to protect themselves if they dropped something, because they feared a beating would be coming, the parent said.
One of the parents addressed Rogers directly.
“That sweet baby boy was tortured and ganged up on by both you and Heather,” the parent said, according to the Lookout. “You treated a boy who thought of you as a dad like an animal, a subhuman, worse than a prisoner in a jail.”
Black pleaded guilty last year to assault and criminal mistreatment and is serving a 15-year prison sentence.
The post ‘Frankly torture’: Dad shocked 7-year-old with Taser if boy dropped from push-up position while the rest of the family ate dinner first appeared on Law & Crime.
