Air marshals mistaken for terrorists, denied permission to board flights. Just another day at the TSA. Thanks to my dad for the tip.
Arlington County, Virginia social services snatches up a couple’s baby based on false allegations of neglect. Two years later, well after they’re cleared of any wrongdoing, a judge rules that the child has already bonded with her foster family, and can’t be returned to her parents. Believe it or not, it gets worse. The comments thread suggests there’s more to the story, but I’m not sure what else there could be. The couple was either exonerated or they weren’t.
Man grows new finger thanks to ground-up pig bladder. Really.
“The personal check was not made out to Mr. Fuller and when the bank contacted the check owner, the woman said she did not write a check for $360 billion.”
“I’m probably the only guy in the entire world who has a ‘Warren G. Harding’ Google News Alert.” Actually, I have one for Calvin Coolidge.
Tim Lee explains how the White House managed to lose seven years of email. Tim’s being all diplomatic and stuff, so I’ll go ahead and say what he’s hinting at: They did it in purpose. There’s no way you can look at this administration’s systematic and concerted efforts at operating in complete and absolute secrecy and conclude that their boneheaded decisions with respect to email archiving were anything other than intentional. How convenient that the new system they’re implementing isn’t likely to be ready until the Bush administration is no longer in office.
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TheAgitator.com
I can understand the fear of traumatizing the child by suddenly removing her from the foster home, but couldn’t the judge at least grant the couple some sort of visitation rights so that they could work toward a reunion?
This is why I find bureaucrats more dangerous than police from an abuse of rights standpoint. A person is always only a pen stroke away from a world of trouble.
I don’t know what more their could be to the story exactly, but yeah, something about the tone of the peice makes me think there’s something.
Here’s a link to the original court decision (you’ll have to disable stylesheets to read it). Basically, it says that they refused to get a live-in nanny (the Examiner article states that they had one), that they kept the kid in a closed milk crate that had no holes, and that the kid was dirty and malnourished.
I can’t find a link to the court documents of the exoneration, but either the story is poorly reported or the judge in the original ruling is lying or was lied to.
The news about the regenerated finger is made entirely of awesome.
(Thank goodness it was pig bladder and not stem cells, eh?)
The false allegations seems so familiar to me what was it again?
Oh! Yea FLDS.
An child can be removed from its adopted home years after adoption if something was unkosher in the adoption agreement (most often the father didn’t sign off on it), so I find it hard to believe they couldn’t remove the girl from foster care if they really wanted to.
Radley,
I’m really glad you highlighted a story about child removal. I work as an attorney in exactly those cases, and it’s very interesting stuff. I usually represent the parents, and sometimes the children - obviously not within the same case - and I can say that the government and their social workers (CPS) are a little too quick to pull the trigger on removals and too slow to put kids back in the home when the parents start getting their acts together, mainly because of the fear of the worst-case scenario coming to fruition and the papers criticize CPS for not being MORE protective.
While this story seems particularly egregious, this piece criticizes many normal aspects of a CPS case that do make some sense: These cases are always private (rare exceptions exist) to protect the children - there are good arguments on both sides for that. CPS often removes the children on anonymous and unproven allegations - anonymity encourages people to report abuse and the parents, at least in my cases, are provided a chance within a few days to have a mini-trial and challenge the allegations and CPS has the burden of proof. At the very start, however, a judge will sign a custody order to CPS without the parents present because the thinking is that the children are in immediate risk and must be removed asap, then the mini-trial is scheduled usually the next day and almost always within 3 days.
At the mini-trial it is often the parents’ own testimony that demonstrates concerns for the children’s well-being, mental health problems or drug use are almost always involved, sadly. So CPS retains custody usually. But then these cases go on for some time, and everyone is (supposedly) working to try to help the parents address their problems and get to a place where they can get the kids back. This is where these cases are won and lost. If the parents go to therapy or starting taking meds, are cooperative and generally show improvement, kids usually go home.
It is a completely allowable line of reasoning to consider the bond a child has formed with the foster parents (if they are ready to adopt), because the ultimate question is what is in the child’s best interests. This is well settled through case law.
“Exonerated” is not the term to be used here. these cases are not about whether they ever *committed* neglect or abuse but whether there is a likelihood of such things in the future - obviously those questions are linked, but these cases are not about a snapshot in time like a criminal case. (For exmaple, sometimes cases pop up solely over domestic violence concerns, but then it is discovered that there are also drug problems, so drugs may end up being the central issue in the case over the long run.) I don’t know who this CPS officer was who exonerated this family, but it may just be the opinion of one worker. CPS has great control after the case starts. They have to agree to give the children back wholly on their own, OR the parents can have a trial usually about a year after removal where CPS must prove them unfit to parent the children.
Sorry for the length of this post but I thought I would lend my expertise to inform the readers here about how these cases work - at least in MA. I don’t agree with everything i wrote here, I’m just staing that is how it works. As for my thoughts, this case seems very fishy mainly in the couple where the child wound up. When a child is first removed the law says that everyone has to be working towards reunification, including the foster parents. If they had designs on adopting this child the whole time, that creates serious problems and may have been the main factor in how this case concluded.
It should be noted that the man who regrew the finger, actually only regrew the the top half-inch. No knuckle or anything like that.
Brian, that might be true, but I sliced off the top eighth of an inch of my left ring finger several years ago with an X-Acto knife (yes, they really are surgically sharp!), and it still doesn’t look right. My finger print is blank there and my sense of touch was messed up for years with numb spots and incorrect touch location. Even if this new treatment isn’t perfect, it’s vastly superior to previous techniques.
Nick T has the basics right - the specifics vary by state. What I’ve found from doing the same work (representing parents or acting as guardian ad litem for the kids) is that it eventually may not matter why the kids were taken - if the parents can’t show they are fit to have the kids back, it doesn’t matter if the reason for removal was made up. Keep that in mind with the FLDS/Texas case.
Ok, the link that Matt Moore gave showing the original court documents is pretty much what I suspected was out there.
This lady doesn’t sound like she can take care of a child. It gave me the willies that the older woman had a stroke while she was staying with the couple and neither Ms. Hey not her husband took the woman to the hospital. And yeah, you don’t keep your baby in dirty clothes in a milk crate.
I don’t know the law here and don’t have time to look it up, but yeah, there’s way more to this story and at least on its face it seems reasonable for CPS to consider them unfit parents if attempts to improve their parenting skills haven’t helped the situation.
CC
Thanks to Matt Moore for the link to the judge’s decision. I read the whole thing, and it does make the case seem less obviously unjust.
I want to second Nick T’s description/opinion. I’ve volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate here in Texas for over a decade, helping to represent children in these cases.
I’m sure egregious cases sometimes happen, but (a) I bet there’s much more to this case than described in the news article and (b) in 14 years I have NEVER personally seen a case where initial removal of the child(ren) was unjustified , or the (rare) termination was not fully justified, after substantial CPS services and effort, and in the best interest of the child(ren). By contrast, I have OFTEN seen bad cases of neglect or abuse where there’s been earlier evidence of those problems and CPS involvement–the department investigated but found “no basis” or offered parenting or other services with kids still in-home.
Children are presumed to be best off with their natural parents, and federal law REQUIRES that CPS make all reasonable efforts toward family reunification. The caseworkers are always overloaded, and I’m sure bad cases happen. But in my experience the government tends to be SLOW in protecting abused and neglected children, not eager to take kids away.
Regarding the Bush e-mail story…of course they did it on purpose. They ran official business through a GOP shadow server (in blatant violation of federal law) for years so they could avoid detection, then when Congress finally caught on and requisitioned those e-mails they claim they accidentally deleted years worth of e-mails and couldn’t recover them when the White House I.T. folks are among the best the government has to offer.
And why did they do this (besides not wanting to be publicly scrutinized)? Because they knew the Democrats (led by someone even more incompetent than George W. Bush) were too goddamned stupid to nail them for it and the mainstream press are too lazy to delve into a complex story about e-mail that doesn’t involve child porn or sexual harassment. Once Nancy Pelosi officially took the possibility of impeachment off the table, the only reason for Bush to even consider obeying the law vanished, so I imagine it’s probably futile to hope that he’ll ever be held accountable for destroying the records of his malfeasance.
It’s really frustrating watching a president as inept as Dubya get away with openly breaking the law because the people who are responsible for keeping an eye on him are even more inept than he is. The state of our nation’s elected government is almost to the point where if Putin went crazy and decided to drop a nuke on Washington D.C., I wouldn’t even care. In fact, that would probably be the only scenario under which the federal government would ever get reduced in size.
Well then we disagree, mark.
I think many of the policies and laws make sense, but they are often not executed properly and CPS’ number 1 motivator is fear of screwing up and being in the paper. Of course they should be aware of that fear but, when that is your primary motivator you’re not doing your job right. I have had social workers admit to me that they don’t care what the law says, that they are out to protect kdis no matter what, even going so far as to interfere with the parent’s attorney-client relationship.
There was a recent case here where a children were at home with a mother and the family was working with CPS because there were several (like almost 10) reports of neglect. Then someone fire-bombed the house while mother was not home late at night (2 14year-olds in the home though) and two of the kids died. And then everyone blamed CPS, and now they are raking extra precautiong before leaving kids in the home, when that case it was just as likely that the house could have been hit by a meteor. Those kids are dead because they were murdered, not because CPS failed. But the media can’t even figure out how to include some of the most basic facts in the story.
Kids are removed unnecessarily quite regularly. It’s definitely a small percentage (maybe 1 in 15) but it happens, when CPS is working with a family because mom has mental health problems and then mom misses too many therapy sessions so they take her child as essentially a punishment even though the child is doing great in the home.
And at the final trials the question is usually about whether the parents did enough services rather than whether CPS can prove them unfit. Parents have to play 9 out of 10 cards right in the system, and even then they go without their kids for at least 6 months. It’s not particularly hard stuff for the parents to do, a lot of it is showing up and not getting angry, but if you sit back and defy CPS to prove their case, you will absolutely lose.
It warms the cockles of my heart that the jack-booted thugs have, until now, been having the same problems as the rest of us proles who have been denied the right to fly because of political retaliation for protected 1st Amendment activities.
Unfortunately, they have now been declared de facto nobility and thus exempt from the restrictions the rest of us have to live by.
I challenge you to present one verified case (not just the claim) where someone has “been denied the right to fly because of political retaliation for protected 1st Amendment activities.”
I’m sorry, but if a caseworker tried to take my children away based on an anonymous tip, there would absolutely be a violent reaction.
Chance,
What kind of verification do you want? The standard answer from the feds is “For national security reasons, we can neither confirm nor deny Mr. X’s inclusion on the watch list. Even if we could tell you Mr. X is on the list, we can’t tell you why.”
Chance: Try this - Ted Kennedy
When it takes a sitting Senator of the United States three weeks to get his name off of the No Fly List, how long will it take someone who doesn’t have that much clout to get off the list? You think Sen. Kennedy was on the list for advocating the violent overthrow of the federal government? I highly doubt it.
The lady in Virginia is being punished for the crime of being autistic. (The article dances around, but that’s what her developmental disorder is.) I’m autistic, just like she is, and I know I can take care of any kid, especially if it was my own.
Re: missing Gee Dubya’s missing emails…how about the “fire” in the Vice President’s offices a while back…eh?
My husband has Asperger’s syndrome. He still wouldn’t keep a baby in a milk crate with no holes at the top and if he saw someone having a stroke, he’d call 911. And I assume that you get that taking care of your kid would include not keeping it in filthy clothes.
I’m not saying that the lady’s PDD isn’t an issue, because I’m sure it is, but she certainly has done things that have given CPS enough ammunition to make a reasonable argument.
And Tokin42, I’m sure the idea of acting violently toward a social worker who is just doing their job is emotionally satisfying, but showing him/her that your reaction to an unreasonable and upsetting situation is violence is not going to give them faith in your parenting skills.
CC
@Scooby Simple: go up to a ticket counter, and try and buy a ticket to get on a plane, with a reliable witness standing there. If the airline refuses to sell a ticket to this person, that would would be sufficient proof for me.
@Kit Smith: According to the article you linked to, the Senator was stopped because his name was similiar to that of another person on the list, and not “because of political retaliation for protected 1st Amendment activities”. I don’t believe the Senator has stated he thinks it was retaliation or directed at him personally. Even the ACLU rep in the link you provided called it a clerical error. What I’m saying is that there are two explanations here: bureaucratic stupidity, or political retaliation. I tend to favor the formaer as the simplest, and hence most likely, explanation.
If it were a choice between being raided by drug war storm troopers and CPS, I would pick the storm troopers. They may wreck your property and terrorize you for a while, but in the absence of any evidence of a crime, when they leave (assuming you’re still alive), the worst part is probably over.
Also, I find it hard to believe that an agency, whose policy is to remove children from the home as a first resort, only errs once in fifteen times (as appalling as the figure is).
Anyone who thinks the work isn’t done until all children are safe will never run out of work and will ultimately create a state where your every move, thought, and breath is under direct state supervision. But don’t worry. It will still be called democracy.
Dave,
My estimated statistic was based on the numebr of times CPS removes a child for reasons that, even if true, do not rise to the level of warranting a removal. If you want to talk about how many times they err, I would assume that means how many times there was really no risk to the child *in reality,* and that would mean looking backward at whether the allegations were true or not.
If you want to talk about those times, I would estimate that allegations are overblown or inaccurate about 40% of the time. But still, in most of my cases, the parents do have some sort of serious problem and it appears to be affecting their parenting.
The problem is that all allegations are given instant credibility because CPS is worried that if they discard allegations as not credible and bad things happen, it will look like they *should have known*. I have a case where the sister-in-law of my client, a known drug abuser and enemy (for lack of better word) of my client, reported to a CPS Social worker that there was drug use in the home when the SW showed up to drop off Xmas presents (the SW was working with the family to help with the kids’ special needs and had a great relationship with the parents). Those allegations were taken completely seriously, kids were told to spend the weekend at a family friends while parents submitted to screens. In the end it appears parents had spent a night out and did a few lines of cocaine (mere drug use is not sufficient reaosn in itself to remove kids) but it wasn’t some rampant life-destroying drug binge as sister-in-law described (which would be a sufficient reason). These loving parents have now been taking screens 2-3x per week for over 3 months while working full-time and going to drug counselling. Mother has failed one screen for cocaine., and father 0. Kids are still out of the home and wondering why they can’t be with their mom, but at least they get to visit them an hour or two a week.
CPS has a history of removing children because their parents participate in “strange” activities. Do a google search on Society for Creative Anachronisms for a prime example.
#24
How about this one?
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-enemy-of-people.html
Retired Marine Colonel, Distinguished Chair on Public Law, author of Bush’s Brain. That’d do it.
And the frightening part was the ticket clerk, who admitted that participating in a “peace march” gets you on the terrorist list.
Then there’s me, who likely got on the list for a Harry Potter book review that made accurate comparisions between the Bush administration and the Ministry of Magic.
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2003/libe231-20030713-03.html
Cause and effect seems to be there, year before I could fly to a convention, following year I was blocked.
It appears that Orbitz bounces all ticket purchase attempts against the lists.
For those of you interested in regenerative medicine, you should take a look at this TED presentation by Alan Russell (my former department chair from Pitt):
http://www.ted.com/speakers/view/id/124
Medicine really is moving along quite nicely.
The main problem that I have with Childrens Services is that in most places there is no oversight of their activities. A few years ago I taught my 12 year old nephew how to shoot a .22 rifle over the Summer. When he returned to school he was given one of those “What did I do on my Summer vacation?” writing assignments. He wote about his learning to shoot a rifle. A few weeks later two women from our County’s Childrens Services Department came knocking on my Sister’s door and demanded to see the guns that she had in her house. When she replied that there were no guns in the house, they handed her the paper my nephew wrote and demanded to know where the rifle he shot was. She told them that it was my rifle and I kept it at my house. A few days later they showed up at my door demanding to see my guns. I basically told them to get lost. A few hours later they showed up with a Police officer and a court order for me to show them my guns. I took them to my locked gun safe and opened it. A remark was made about the number of guns that I had and the amount of ammunition that was in there, but when the Officer saw that there were trigger locks on each weapon and that the ammo was in locked compartments he said that he had seen enough and thanked me for my time. He also told the two women from Children’s Services that it was time for them to get the hell out of my house, that I had complied with the order and there was no reason for them to stay. I later found out that they tried to get a Court order forbidding my Sister’s children being in my house, but the testimony of the Officer had prevented it.
If that order had been granted, there was no way for it to be appealed. I was never notified about the hearing for the order, so that I could testify. The only way that I found out was that the cop went out of his way to tell me.
“And Tokin42, I’m sure the idea of acting violently toward a social worker who is just doing their job is emotionally satisfying, but showing him/her that your reaction to an unreasonable and upsetting situation is violence is not going to give them faith in your parenting skills.”
C.C., I see what you’re saying. But — I don’t speak for Tokin42, but I do speak as a father — if strangers are acting in an unreasonable manner that *includes taking away my infant child*, I think it’s almost instinctual that a parent will have the urge to defend that child at all costs. And yes, if someone I don’t know is trying to take away my daughter without just cause, I will do everything and anything to prevent that from happening. That reaction is neither unreasonable nor disproportionate. And it says nothing about my “parenting skills.” It’s like smacking someone in the knees with a crowbar and then saying “it’s hard to take you seriously if you keep screaming like that.”
While the particulars of this case may have justified some concern, I react pretty viscerally to reading about this case. My daughter was “failure to thrive.” She started losing weight almost immediately after her birth, despite the fact that we fed and fed and fed her. At two months, she started to look emaciated. She fell completely off of the growth chart. Her ribs showed. We took her to 3 different pediatricians, none of whom could find anything wrong other than “she didn’t seem to be getting enough calories.”
Then, finally, when she was 10 months old, she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (see http://www.cff.org/AboutCF/). All along, she had simply been unable to digest her food, so — even though we fed her contstantly — she was undernourished. Now, with enzyme supplementation, she’s almost 4 years old and doing very well, despite continued lung problems.
So reading about this sort of thing happening makes me bristle. How close could we have been to having our desperately ill baby girl taken from us forcibly before her diagnosis? How long would it have been before she was properly diagnosed and received the care she needed? It’s hard to even contemplate.