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Author Topic: FL Parents Arrested After Son Was Caught Playing Basketball in Backyard for 90m  (Read 674 times)
Wilikon (OP)
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June 12, 2015, 04:49:47 PM
 #1







11-Year-Old Boy Played in His Yard. CPS Took Him, Felony Charge for Parents.




One afternoon this past April, a Florida mom and dad I'll call Cindy and Fred could not get home in time to let their 11-year-old son into the house. The boy didn't have a key, so he played basketball in the yard. He was alone for 90 minutes. A neighbor called the cops, and when the parents arrived—having been delayed by traffic and rain—they were arrested for negligence.

They were put in handcuffs, strip searched, fingerprinted, and held overnight in jail.

It would be a month before their sons—the 11-year-old and his 4-year-old brother—were allowed home again. Only after the eldest spoke up and begged a judge to give him back to his parents did the situation improve.

I spoke with Cindy about her family’s horrible ordeal.

"My older one was the so-called 'victim,'" she said during a phone interview. But since she and her husband were charged with felony neglect, the younger boy had to be removed from the home, too.

Here is the law: "A person who willfully or by culpable negligence neglects a child without causing great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement to the child commits a felony of the third degree."

I first heard of Cindy's case last week when she wrote to me at Free-Range Kids. Her email explained:

The authorities claim he had no access to water or shelter.  We have an open shed in the back yard and 2 working sinks and 2 hoses.  They said he had no food.  He ate his snacks already.  He had no bathroom, but the responding officer found our yard good enough to relieve himself in while our son sat in a police car alone.  In his own yard, in a state,  Florida, that has no minimum age for children to be alone. 

The children were placed in foster care for two days while the state ran a background check on a relative who was willing to take them in. "Our first choice was my mother," said Cindy. "But she lives in another state and so the kids would have been in foster care even longer until they cleared her." The parents decided to have them placed with a slightly problematic in-state relative instead.

On the day they all appeared in children's court to move the kids from foster care into the relative's custody, Cindy thought her older son smelled a little strange.

"What have you been eating?" she asked.

"Cereal," he replied.

Only cereal, for the past few days. That's not going to kill anyone, obviously. But if you're arresting parents for not supervising their kids for 90 minutes, it's more than a little hypocritical.

The boys went off with the relative. As Cindy and Fred were charged with a felony, they couldn't cross the county line to go see them and the relative refused to bring them to visit. But after a few weeks, she got tired of taking care of the kids. "Unbeknownst to us," said Cindy, "she was putting them back in state custody."

That's when Child Protective Services asked the court to place the boys in foster care.


Last Tuesday, Cindy, Fred, their two kids, their lawyer, and a lawyer for CPS appeared again in children's court. The opposing lawyers went into the judge's chambers and came out every so often. The family's lawyer explained what was going on. "They were arguing on whether or not the kids should go to foster care or with us,” said Cindy. This went on for hours.

But then, according to Cindy, "My son spoke up." He said he wanted to talk to the judge.

Surprised, their lawyer asked the boy: Did he have the courage to go through with this? And would he tell the truth?

The boy said yes.

"He went back there and spoke to the judge for about ten minutes," said Cindy. "And then the judge came out and called the two lawyers to the bench and talked to them for about 10 or 15 minutes. And with that, our lawyer came to us and said that if we admitted that we didn't know that it was wrong to [let our son] stay in the backyard, but that we know now that it's wrong and we will never let it happen again, and that we will explain this to our son, he would let the children come with us."

Cindy and Fred promised. The judge released the kids and closed the case.

But that is not the end.

That was civil court. Next, Cindy and Fred will head to criminal court to plead "not guilty" to the neglect charge. Naturally, they hope the entire case will be dropped.

In the meantime, to comply with all of the CPS dictates, Cindy and Fred are attending parenting classes. They are also going to therapy. The kids are attending "play" therapy.

This summer, as part of the deal, the older boy must attend day camp. The younger must attend day care. The reason, Cindy thinks, is that years ago there was a girl who disappeared while in foster care and it turned out that no one had been keeping track of her whereabouts. If kids attend day camp or daycare, their whereabouts will always be accounted for.

I asked Cindy how she and the kids spent last summer.

"We did little projects, we would go to the beach," she said. Or they would visit dad at work. She had been planning to enjoy another low key summer with them.

Instead, she will be at home while her kids are in a program mandated by the state.

Cindy and Fred cannot be sure who called the cops and turned their lives upside down. (They have their suspicions.) But they do know who told them they needed to take parenting classes, get therapy, and promise never to let their kids play in their own backyard without a watchman again. They know who took their children away.

And you know, too.


http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-yard-cps-t





UliJonHoth
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June 12, 2015, 06:05:43 PM
 #2

With the direction we are headed, I can't imagine what this country will look like in another 10 years. I grew-up in the 70s and early 80s and my parents would have been under the jail if this is how "authorities" are handling things like this. At times I feel like Rip Van Winkle, went to sleep and woke-up in this bizarro-reality.
Wilikon (OP)
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June 12, 2015, 07:21:43 PM
 #3

With the direction we are headed, I can't imagine what this country will look like in another 10 years. I grew-up in the 70s and early 80s and my parents would have been under the jail if this is how "authorities" are handling things like this. At times I feel like Rip Van Winkle, went to sleep and woke-up in this bizarro-reality.


Yep.


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June 12, 2015, 11:00:32 PM
 #4

CPS is a for profit corporation that generates revenue by confiscating and then adopting out kids. As a result of this they have great incentives to go after suitable parents for technical infractions of the law rather than protecting actually abused children. Emotionally healthy children are easier to sell off than broken emotionally damaged and abused children.

Even worse they are completely outside of the legal system and have their own secret courts. As far as they are concerned the child is more property of the state than the parents, and good luck convincing them otherwise.

CPS = Children for Profit System
Chef Ramsay
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June 13, 2015, 02:30:47 AM
 #5

CPS is a for profit corporation that generates revenue by confiscating and then adopting out kids. As a result of this they have great incentives to go after suitable parents for technical infractions of the law rather than protecting actually abused children. Emotionally healthy children are easier to sell off than broken emotionally damaged and abused children.

Even worse they are completely outside of the legal system and have their own secret courts. As far as they are concerned the child is more property of the state than the parents, and good luck convincing them otherwise.

CPS = Children for Profit System
We've all seen kids that are being raised in a shitty way by parents that aren't even fit to take care of themselves cause they're relying on government handouts and this is why they have the kids in the first place. The most optimal way to raise a kid is to have carefully planned the pregnancy in cahoots w/ being financially ready to handle such a responsibility. This way, the kid is raised w/ maximum love and compassion. This CPS was born w/ the intent to weed out unfortunate kids from miscreant parents as the welfare state started to kick into higher gear a few decades ago or so. Now, it's become the predatory agency that you describe but these judges need to recognize good parents when they see them before them instead of allowing these lawyers to battle out what's best for the kid.
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June 13, 2015, 02:38:41 AM
 #6

IMO this is kind of over reacting government. I know children are the future but this kind of act doesn't give them an idea of a good future.

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bryant.coleman
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June 13, 2015, 05:36:01 AM
 #7

CPS is a for profit corporation that generates revenue by confiscating and then adopting out kids. As a result of this they have great incentives to go after suitable parents for technical infractions of the law rather than protecting actually abused children. Emotionally healthy children are easier to sell off than broken emotionally damaged and abused children.

This is ongoing in almost all the Western countries. The United Kingdom and Norway are the worst. Check this thread, which deals with the child kidnapping by the Norwegian state authorities:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=828129.0

The primary reason for the child kidnapping by the state is that the supply is not enough to meet the demand, as far as adoption is concerned. Countries such as Russia has banned adoption by foreign foster-parents, and the number of white children available for adoption is declining in countries such as Romania and Moldova due to the rising living standards / low birth rates.
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June 13, 2015, 01:40:33 PM
 #8

Wow, the government strikes again! What a beautiful experience it must have been for the kids, way better than being locked out of the house for a while. *sarcasm*
Ignorance is so common, it's unfortunate.

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