Cclockwise from left: Ryan Belknap booking photo (via Yavapi Sheriff’s Office); Google Maps area map of Ash Fork, Arizona, where Belknap took his two sons to four-wheel and allegedly gave them nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, in June 2024 (via Google Maps); nitrous oxide gas canisters. (Jan. 13, 2020. Gareth Fuller/PA Wire URN:62153328/Press Association via AP Image.)
A man who allegedly admitted to his ex-wife that he gave his 12- and 13-year-old sons nitrous oxide, more commonly known as “laughing gas,” while riding an all-terrain vehicle through the terrain of Ash Fork, Arizona, has been arrested.
In a statement from the Yavapi County Sheriff’s Office published on Facebook on Monday, deputies alleged that one of resident Ryan Belknap’s children “passed out but was not given medical help” during the June 4 incident.
Police said they received the report of child abuse in Ash Fork, Arizona, from a woman who shares children with Belknap. She told police that it was her 16-year-old daughter who told her about a “potentially incriminating video” taken by one of her brothers while they were out with their father.
The video featured Belknap and his sons; police said the girl was not involved in the trip. The footage, police said, showed the boys inhaling the gas from a balloon.
According to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, the gas is inhaled by discharging nitrous gas cartridges, known as bulbs or whippets, into another object — like a balloon — or simply directly into the mouth. The drug produces a short-lived euphoric feeling but also poses risks like heart attacks and long-term damage including memory loss and damage to vital organs.
Police said Monday after “detailed interviews” they learned that the boys’ mother and her daughter “confronted the suspect who allegedly admitted to providing laughing gas to the boys.”
There also wasn’t just one incident of inhaling the gas.
Detectives said they learned the inhaling incidents “occurred repeatedly and near continuously for several hours” as Belknap “took them ‘4-wheeling’ around the Ash Fork area.”
One of the boys passed out at some point on the trip and it is unclear if it was the younger or older child.
Police said the boy was “not given medical help” and it not clear what the status of his condition is now.
Ultimately, Belknap was arrested at his home in Cornville, Arizona and detectives said when they searched his property, they located “large canisters of nitrous oxide” inside as well as balloons to inhale the drug.
Belknap has been charged with child abuse endangerment; possession of a vapor-releasing substance containing toxic substance; possession of drug paraphernalia; furnishing harmful items to minors; permitting life health or morals to be imperiled by neglect, abuse or immoral association; and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
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