Officers of the Year Tried to Save Toddler from Father

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When dispatchers broadcast the call that a three-year-old girl was taken by her father after he shot her grandfather and great-grandmother, Prince George’s County Police officers converged.

Among those joining in the hunt last summer for the suspect, Frederick Roy Miller, 38, of Landover were two off-duty officers, Corporal Clarence Black and Corporal Paul Schweinsburg. For their effort to try to save little Laila Miller, the two officers were recognized as the police department’s Officers of the Year for 2014. All six of the officers who tried to apprehend Miller were recognized with the Gold Medal of Valor, this week.

Officers were called to the 4200 block of Farmer Place in Temple Hills Aug. 17 for the report of a shooting. They found a man and a woman suffering from gunshot wounds.

Miller began shooting at police in the intersection of Beech Road and Branch Avenue as officers – including Black and Schweinsburg – returned fire. Miller died in the fracas; none of the officers were injured, Patch previously reported.

None of the officers saw the little girl in Miller’s car as the six-minute pursuit turned into a gun battle. Once the shooting ended and police saw the child, they tried to save her.

Miller’s three-year old daughter, Laila, was found inside the car suffering from both stab and gunshot wounds inflicted by her father. Despite efforts by police at the scene, the child was pronounced dead at a hospital.

And the officers involved then worried that they might have fired the shot that killed the toddler. It was 24 hours before they learned that Miller had slit his daughter’s throat and shot her before killing himself.

“I don’t think anyone would discharge their firearm knowing there was a little girl in the car,” Black told The Washington Post. “It wasn’t until we approached the car that we saw her little foot.”

The officers said they had no control over Miller’s horrific acts that day.

“They told us she had been taken and we looked for her, but we didn’t see any movement in the car,” Schweinsburg told the newspaper. “It is very hard to comprehend that you could be responsible. Gratefully our shots were not responsible for that.”

»PHOTO: Prince George’s County Police Twitter feed photo of Corporal Clarence Black and Corporal Paul Schweinsburg; group photo of Gold Medal of Valour recipients, courtesy of PGPD