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Matthew Cantrell, 21 months old, died days after he strangled in the netting of a soccer goal in his family's backyard in Murphy, Texas, on Oct. 2, 2007.

His mother, Ave Marie Cantrell, cut him loose with a pair of scissors, carried him inside to a sofa and dialed 911 at 7:26 p.m. He died at a Dallas hospital. A report dated Oct. 7, 2007, gave the cause of death as accidental hanging.

Stephen Williamson, a communications officer with the Murphy Police Department, took the call and dispatched police and paramedics a minute later, according to the record laid out by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ave Cantrell told him the boy was not breathing, that his skin was pale and that a soccer net had strangled him. Williamson tried to get her to calm down, then after about two minutes transferred the call to East Texas Medical Center, the outside agency that supplied pre-arrival instructions for the city at the time.

The logging tape of the call, made public in 2009 and quoted in news reports, captured her asking repeatedly for direction. "I could do CPR or something," she said. "Please, tell me what I need to do." She said later that she was halfway through a CPR course. After the call ended, dispatchers could be heard talking to each other. "She wasn't going to listen," one said. "I've tried to get her to calm down."

Officers Clayton Dacey and Kevin McGee arrived just before 7:30 p.m., found no pulse and saw strangulation marks on the boy's neck and chest, court records say. McGee concluded foul play might be involved and designated the house a crime scene, and the officers moved Ave Cantrell into a bedroom. Paramedics arrived at 7:32 p.m., decided the boy was still a viable patient and began resuscitation. Ave Cantrell, who made repeated suicidal statements that night, was driven to the police station and then to a hospital in McKinney for emergency mental health detention.

The family sued on May 19, 2009, in federal court in Tyler, naming the city, its police chief, the responding officers and East Texas Medical Center. The Cantrells alleged the 911 operators refused to give CPR instructions and that officers withheld aid and held up the paramedics. "When you call 911, you think they're going to help," Michael Cantrell, the boy's father, said in a statement released by the family's attorneys. "Not one of them tried to save my boy's life." The city denied responsibility, said officers reached the home within minutes, checked the boy for breathing and a pulse, and secured the area as a crime scene after seeing obvious signs of strangulation. Murphy Police Chief G.M. Cox said dispatchers do not give medical advice. City Manager James Fisher said Murphy would fight the suit if it was not dismissed.

A federal judge dismissed part of the complaint in October 2010 but refused to grant Dacey and McGee qualified immunity on two claims. On Jan. 4, 2012, the 5th Circuit reversed that ruling, holding that the officers had no affirmative constitutional duty to provide medical care to the boy under DeShaney v. Winnebago County, and that they had probable cause to take his mother into protective custody given her suicidal statements. Court records show the district court case was closed in March 2013.