14 ms·

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

121 points by avalaunch 11y ago

dylanjermiah 11y ago
Your kids were without their parents for 90 minutes, so we're going to take them for 30 days.
dudul 11y ago
CPS are disgusting scum. This kind of story is reported every week. The government is criminalizing parenthood. Kids can't play in their backyard, they can't walk to the playground, they can't ride their bikes. Do people remember their childhood? When did Americans become so socially retarded?
- kzhahou 11y ago
  These cases are a tiny minority. CPS deals with real horrifying and tragic situations every day. I'm actually more shocked that there are prosecutors and even judges that go along with this BS. I can believe one insane activist CPS worker here and there, but an entire chain of people to back them up??
  - mcphage 11y ago
    > CPS deals with real horrifying and tragic situations every day. That's what boggles my mind the most. Every time we hear about CPS they're overworked and have to deal with horrors I don't even want to imagine. But how do they have time to waste voluntarily ruining peoples' lives?
    - vacri 11y ago
      Well... let's not assume that the article has told the whole story. There's nothing independently verifiable in it.
    - Delmania 11y ago
      > But how do they have time to waste voluntarily ruining peoples' lives? Perception bias. The only time you'll hear about CPS is in a case like this, when the agent is on a power trip and oversteps his bounds. You never hear about the success stories, where they intervene to save a child, or are successful in getting a family therapy. I can speak from experience here, I have dealt with CPS. When I was notified they would be visiting our house, I did some research. I read the horror stories, and I learned a key detail: CPS is not a policing agency. The threats of taking your children from you and throwing you in jail are idle: only police and judges can do that. When you deal with CPS, only let them in your house if they agree to be recorded. If they refuse, or their supervisor objects, don't let them in. Unless they have a warrant, you are under NO obligation to deal with them. (Bear in mind, though, the courts will probably side with CPS) But I digress. My experience with the social worker was that she was just as nervous in dealing with me as I was with her, but she was genuinely interested in understanding and offering assistance. She asked a few questions, held a follow up visit, and that was the end of it.
- yequalsx 11y ago
  It started in the early 80s and culminated with the kidnapping of Jacob Weterling. During this time local and national news portrayed pedophiles and rapists as serious, common threats to children. There was the absurd McMartin daycare nonsense. The 80s were a time of relatively high crime and it was during this era that zero tolerance policies became the norm. It's when mandatory minimum sentences became the norm and punishments for crimes became very heavy. As I see things we lost our soul during this time and have not yet recovered it. At this time if you traveled overseas the first question people would ask is if it was safe. Justifying laws and policies in the name of safety was the way to get compliance from the citizenry. It still persists today though people are starting to see the bullshit. Note that the usual way politicians justify curbs on the internet is by mentioning child pornography.
PebblesHD 11y ago
I say this literally every time a story like this pops up but, as ever, I'll say it again: Have the (adults) in charge completely lost their minds? Is the government so out of touch with reality that this makes sense to them? I loved going on walks or riding my bike to the shops or sleeping in/playing at home when i was 10 or 11, and yet now this seems all but impossible to consider? How the hell did this happen?
- dudul 11y ago
  So true. When people are surprised when 1 boy out of 5 is diagnosed with ADHD. They can't do anything! They're freaking bored! Millenials are called weak, entitled and useless, but wait for the next cohort of "bright" minds who are gonna lead this country. Will they be able to even feed themselves? Is it even safe to teach a kid how to cook an egg?
- vacri 11y ago
  Are we being fed a heavily edited version of the story? Was there more to the parental history than is mentioned? Why hide the identity of the parents, given that they've already been through the wringer and the whole affair is a matter of public record? Given how overloaded CPS usually are, this article fails the sniff test.
- graycat 11y ago
  > How the hell did this happen? Standard: Some bad parents actually do exist. So, with a few such examples, some people who want to get attention get some laws passed and set up CPS with some really big powers, e.g., ones that violate little things like due process. Some of the laws mention felonies. Then the CPS department gets created, funded, and staffed. Then a phone call comes in, and CPS swings into action. Then, CPS wants to look busy, do their job, believes that they are now responsible for the child, wants to make sure nothing goes wrong where they could be blamed, so take full control of the life of the child, as their rules say, and to heck with anything like due process, the actual good of the child, the good of the family, etc. Instead, CPS becomes just law and rules driven. So, CPS is brain-dead, dysfunctional, dangerous, destructive, demented, deranged, etc. Why? They are just following the law and their rules to avoid any blame. So, CPS put a torpedo just below the waterline of that totally innocent family. They did psychological damage to the child; they harmed the sense of security of the family; they wasted the time of the family; the may have wrecked the family finances due to the legal costs. Earlier tonight I watched the Nova program on the June 6, 1944 Normandy landing. I was reminded of all the death and destruction fighting Hitler. But then with something like CPS and US police shooting unarmed Blacks in the back, etc., we are creating disasters out of nothing, nothing at all, disasters, out of nothing, for no good reason. The judge? He should have found a way to charge the CPS thugs, laughed their case out of court, and put the family back together. Since he didn't, he should get a new career cleaning sidewalks with a tooth brush -- "Nice and clean, now, y'hear?". CPS must report to a mayor or governor, etc. Well, with enough such stories, the mayor or whomever should ensure that the head of CPS and everyone involved in that case should join the judge in brushing the sidewalks. Part of the solution is sunlight, e.g., on the Internet. Too often our government has become just a dangerous enemy of the citizens. The citizens should vote for the needed changes. Due to CPS, every family with children is at risk of essentially just thugs from CPS wrecking their families, a greater risk than a bomb from a terrorist and comparably dangerous. TSA? Sure, they can steal money and valuables from your luggage and molest your wife and daughters. Gee, when I was 10 or so, I got a three speed bicycle, and then, especially during the summers, I was gone for hours at a time, sometimes 20 miles round trip. No problems. I was big for my age: If some CPS types had tried to do something to me, it would have been a fight, a real fight -- I would have defended myself from the CPS attackers. Sure, if I could have found a club, I would have beat them to a bloody pulp -- just ordinary self-defense. Government wants to grow, like poison ivy or worse. Have to cut it back. The key way: Just cut their budgets. How to do that? Sure, vote. Then get rid of the government thugs who attack citizens and get lower taxes. Read. Complain. Vote. Solve the problem. That's what our democracy is for and some of why we really need democracy. Else the government will grow and grow and become a hostile occupying force in our country like Hitler occupied Poland. In Normandy is a cemetery with, as I recall from the Nova program, 9000 graves of US soldiers who fought for our freedom. Well, we should not let out of control government do to us what Hitler would have done.
13years 11y ago
Basically this is the evolution towards Minority Report. We are destroying the concept of innocent until proven guilty and are convicting people for what might happen instead of what did happen.
hippich 11y ago
I am foreigner, so could someone explain to me - why this is happening? From my discussion similar incidents with other parents it seems like everybody not sure why such attitude exists today. I mean, it should be same adults who have no clue why it is done, pass and enforce these laws?
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  Democracy, where the intention for 'safety' and 'protecting children' is valued above the actual results.
- ars 11y ago
  There's a reason it's on the news, this is not a common thing.
- randxx 11y ago
  As an American who spends a lot of time in other countries, here's my best, shortest attempt to explain: 1) The cultural trust and norms in our country are dead. Everything gets the most superficial consideration, there's no basis of reasonableness such that even the judge doesn't stop the machine, power is so distributed that there's no reasonable authority in place, and people like CPS -- who have difficult and challenging and necessary jobs -- don't know how to recognize "normal" when they see it. American has no "normal" anymore, and everyone acts based on their greatest fears, informed by our weird local news, NCIS/Law&Order fear-mongering mentality. We used to have class divisions that kept things a little normal within class lines, now class divisions have been destroyed such that everyone's caught in a race to the bottom. 1b) I like to think I'm not really subject to #1, being an upper middle class white professional... but I live in a relatively urban environment, with a pre-teen child, and there's a sense that one socially construed "accident" can send me into a can of worms that can take years to climb out of. So, until then, I'll assume I'm relatively untouchable, because I'm not really sure what else my option is. I can see relocating, to one of my international anchor points.. permanently, at some point. 2) There's a strong tinge of "fuck them" or "they have no right" or "they shouldn't" in a lot of American interactions now, whether formal or otherwise. People are endlessly bothered by things they aren't affected by. I mean, it's not everywhere... American culture is now a corporate construct designed to make everyone in its demographic purview feel strongly about something that doesn't matter to them, whether it's escapees with big dicks or the Kardashians. Radio plays the same 10 songs over and over and over again so you have to hit scan and your radio takes you through stations back to news anchor talking about news that doesn't matter. And if you get home and turn on the TV you're assaulted by the local news anchors with "news you can trust" or weather reports "you can count on", and when you ignore that your co-worker at work will just force it down your throat anyway, and you'll pretend to go along with it so as to have some minor smidgeon of false rapport, lest you come off as anti-social or.. critical. I was just at a farmer's market tonight where kids ran free and cops patted kids on the head and dogs were off leash and people were eating ice cream and yelling and laughing. But it just takes one person, with a spiteful "I'll get 'em..." trigger to bring an invisible avalanche into the room. I think it's worse in urban areas and in suburban areas, which is why I've been living in medium sized "towns" with urban centers. There seems to be less of that in that kind of neighborly construct. But neither can we talk about places like urban California, suburban California, and rural California in equal terms that cover those places, but also midwestern areas or southern areas or bible belt areas. We're not one country anymore, and we have no norms, and people are always told that someone, somewhere is taking shit from them, whether it's terrorists, the emboldened, or the entitled. There are each of those, but fewer bothering each of us in actuality. But lots of people can't see the normal in the normal anymore, either.
femto 11y ago
> The parents decided to have them placed with a slightly problematic in-state relative instead. Leaving out any issues of rights, that's the biggest issue here: that children get moved from a safe situation into a more dangerous one, in the name of keeping them safe. Take this recent case in Australia [1]. A father cared enough about his child to voluntarily put him in the state's care, whilst he sorted himself out. The child never came home, as the state placed the child in an unsafe home, and he drowned. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parents-demand-answers-after-toddler-drowned-in-foster-carers-pool-20150522-gh77bt.html http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parents-demand-answers-after-toddl...
melvinmt 11y ago
In other news today: http://www.kltv.com/story/29290704/police-video-shows-officer-questioning-about-lemonade-stand-permit http://www.kltv.com/story/29290704/police-video-shows-office...
welly 11y ago
I hate to be that person but this isn't the actions of a country that prides itself as being free. Sadly, it's not an isolated case either. I've read numerous similar accounts of such things occurring. Along with the "lemonade stand permit", it's bewildering. I realise that in the grand scheme, these are fairly unique but you simply don't hear about such things happening in Europe, in Australia or in the middle and far East. Perhaps it's a case of similar cases happening in other nations but just not reported on so much. Why do we keep reading stories like this and the deluge of police brutality and other wacky stories coming out of the USA?
- ddingus 11y ago
  Authoritarians. They are the ones escalating all this petty garbage, IMHO.
- vacri 11y ago
  in Australia So, in Victoria at least, it was recently made illegal to leave your kids in the car for any length of time. Going inside to pay at the petrol station? Take your kids with you. Admittedly it's not going to end you up in the middle of the story in the article, and you're going to have to be pretty unlucky to find a cop who's enough of a dickhead to apply this law apropos of no other issues, but technically it's now illegal to do so.
  - ryan-allen 11y ago
    Really? Holy crap! I live in Victoria (don't have kids), and this is news to me. I remember that it's illegal to leave your kids in cars on hot days, but that's it.
    - vacri 11y ago
      State legislation rarely makes the news, unless it's about a new highway somewhere :) Last Week Tonight did an episode on how state legislatures in the US are passing heaps of legislation "on the sly" (scare quotes because it's not really sly, just no-one watches them...), and it's similar over here. Hell, I keep forgetting our current premier's name, and I voted for him... and I couldn't tell you the name of a single other state politician who isn't a party leader. I've even forgotten the name of the guy involved in the union scandal last week...
VieElm 11y ago
Here's a similar case where a writer left her son in her car for a few minutes in a parking lot at a store: http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_day_i_left_my_son_in_the_car/ http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_day_i_left_my_son_in_the...
- mapt 11y ago
  "At the time of the incident, he never mentioned what had happened, and I assumed that he was unaware, that the best thing would be not to bring it up. But, of course, kids are astute observers and somewhere along the line, he figured it out. I got out of the car one day to feed the parking meter next to the driver side window. “Don’t, Mommy. Don’t. The police will come.” I went to let the dog into our front yard while he was watching his morning cartoon. “Mommy, no!!! The police.” One afternoon after his swim lesson, he came out of the bathroom and for a second didn’t see me — I’d kneeled down to get his shoes from their cubby. When I looked up he was crying. “Mommy, mommy, I thought someone was going to steal me.” That evening I sat him down and tried to explain it. I told him that he was right, that mommy had left him in the car for a few minutes one time and that was a mistake. I wasn’t supposed to do that. But it was all going to be fine now. Mommy wasn’t going to jail. And no one was going to kidnap him! “Most people,” I told him, “are not trying to hurt you. Most people are good people. Do you understand? You don’t have to be afraid?” He nodded slowly, but I could see from his face that he only half believed me."
jbigelow76 11y ago
Maybe it's just me but I'm having a hard time taking this story seriously. The list of affronts visited on the family (strip searches, cops pissing on property, foster worse than the parents, humiliation of the parents by the state) makes it a story sound almost too good to be true if you are looking to rile up your readership. No identifying information is another big red flag, the parents of the free range kids hassled for letting their kids walk a mile to the park were all over media but this even more horrible (if true) story of kids being taken away for playing in the back yard is totally anonymous? Come on. The bar to get me to hate on bureaucratic drones is pretty low, over shoot it too much and you take the fun away.
- ghaff 11y ago
  Yeah, I don't much care for the apparent general trend and there have certainly been some documented cases that are pretty ridiculous. I daresay things that I did as a child at various ages would shock a lot of people today. That said, this particular story is from: Lenore Skenazy is host of the reality show “World’s Worst Mom” on the Discovery Life Channel, starting Jan. 22. She is also a public speaker and founder of the book and blog Free-Range Kids. That doesn't make it wrong. But it clearly comes from someone who is on a particular side of the issue. And a quick search doesn't uncover original reportage from elsewhere. So color me skeptical.
- jpatokal 11y ago
  Per the details in the original post, she is employed by a school, and has been suspended and told to not to talk to media until this is over: http://www.freerangekids.com/boy-11-plays-basketball-in-own-yard-as-he-awaits-delayed-parents-cops-take-him-brother-away-for-a-month/ http://www.freerangekids.com/boy-11-plays-basketball-in-own-... And given the steady stream of well-documented, actual and equally ridiculous cases like this on Free Range Kids, I doubt this is a prank.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    They want to make an example out of her.
  - 11y ago
IvyMike 11y ago
Is there any corroboration of the story, or a response by CPS and/or the court? It's very possible I missed it, but neither the article nor the comments give a solid source other than the parents. Because the skeptic in me says that while CPS might be pretty bad, it's also not inconceivable that the aggrieved parents might leave out key details of the story. So I'd like to hear what CPS (or really, any other source) has to say before I get too up-in-arms here.
- reagency 11y ago
  It's not fair when one side (the state) intentionally gag-orders everyone, to use their silence as proof that nothing happened.
fsloth 11y ago
While the story is of course fucked up the comments about CPS being some kind brownshirt-nanny corps are perhaps a bit overblown? There are actually people who do more harm than good to their kids and that's the reason I suppose these procedures exist. I would say it is the 'common standard' of what constitues a negligence that is the twisted thing here. Normal kids don't need a 24 hour supervisor once they go to school.
pg_is_a_butt 11y ago
fuck all of you idiots. america is doomed and you are personally to blame. yes, YOU, idiot.
isaacg 11y ago
I looked up the relevant part of the legal code: 3)(a) "Neglect of a child" means: 1. A caregiver's failure or omission to provide a child with the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain the child's physical and mental health, including, but not limited to, food, nutrition, clothing, shelter, supervision, medicine, and medical services that a prudent person would consider essential for the well-being of the child; or 2. A caregiver's failure to make a reasonable effort to protect a child from abuse, neglect, or exploitation by another person. Neglect of a child may be based on repeated conduct or on a single incident or omission that results in, or could reasonably be expected to result in, serious physical or mental injury, or a substantial risk of death, to a child. If I'm reading it correctly, an incident like this could have been legal grounds to charge the parents with neglect if and only if it was repeated conduct - e.g., they had repeatedly locked the kid out of the house. If not, any judge would through this case out immediately. Note: I'm not a lawyer and may be entirely wrong.
- tptacek 11y ago
  To prove the crime of Neglect of a Child, the State must prove the following three elements beyond a reasonable doubt: 1. (Defendant) a. [willfully] [by culpable negligence] failed or omitted to provide (victim) with the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain (victim’s) physical or mental health. b. failed to make a reasonable effort to protect (victim) from abuse, neglect, or exploitation by another person. 2. (Defendant) was a caregiver for (victim). 3. (Victim) was under the age of 18 years. Florida jury instructions.
  - visarga 11y ago
    Failed to provide "care, supervision, and services" for 17 year olds? I hoped at 14 they declare the kids grown up.
xahrepap 11y ago
Foster parent here (from another state than in the article). I'm going to go a bit off topic, but I want to comment on this snippet: > [The kids had been eating] [o]nly 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. There's probably a good reason for that: the foster parents couldn't get the kids to eat anything else! Perhaps they were really nervous and uncomfortable? When I'm nervous, it's hard to eat other foods like vegetables and meats. Sometimes cereal is all I can stomach. I could only imagine how those poor, confused kids felt. We were trained to feed the kids what they would eat. That means if they want a hot dog every night, you give them a freaking hot dog every night. Sometimes keeping the kid within whatever is left of their comfort zone is more important than good nutrition. As time goes on, you start mixing things up and start giving them better food. But out the gate, the most important thing is to help the kids feel comfortable. People like the author of this article seem to love to paint foster parents in a bad light. They have this weird mentality I don't understand. They don't care about the facts, they're just looking for anything to make everyone from the state to look like incompetent scum. Look even at this quote: > The kids are attending "play" therapy. Maybe it's because the whole article is horribly negative and lacking any kind of reference (even all the names are made up to "protect the innocent" or whatever), but I feel like that is sarcasm. And the sarcasm in that sentence demonstrates how much the author doesn't know. "Play" therapy is a real thing, and it really helps the kids. It's not some crazy witchcraft the state thought up. The kids might've been "normal" before this all happened, but it's important to get kids in this situation (even the ones that weren't abused/neglected/etc, like the children in the article) to make sure they're getting the help that they need to cope with the CURRENT situation. We always try to get our foster kids in play therapy, even if they act completely "normal" and understanding of everything. The thing I don't want is to think the kid is okay and then find out they've been holding it all back.
- neilcrj 11y ago
  > The thing I don't want is to think the kid is okay and then find out they've been holding it all back. Great insight. Kids at that age are looking for parental/adult approval and they know that the adults around them want them to be "okay." They can hide a lot of emotions if they think they'll be loved more for being "normal."
DenisM 11y ago
The article is likely a fake, a grown up version of the children camp horror story, and it gets retold for the same reason. In a quality news article you have to have answers to three questions: who, where, when. These three are necessary to verify claims independently, and their absence is highly suspect. There are exceptions to the rule - sometimes a journalist has to protect the people involved, such as in the case of a vulnerable crime victim or a political whistleblower (Watergate, Snowden), but then we're basically relying on the reputation on the journalist or the newspaper in question - a track record of getting scandalous stories right. In this case there is no reason to hide the names, dates, or location (as the neighbors already know and the court records are open), and there is no way to ascertain the credibility of the news source. Absence of both a credible source and a credible reporter to vouch for the anonymous source breaks the chain of credibility - the article might as well be made up, and it usually is. Another suspicious factor is that the claims are so outlandish - the more outrageous the claim, the more likely its a fake. When a reader is frightened or outraged he is more likely to disregard caution and share the story, and so it goes viral. For that reason outlandish stories are more likely to get shared regardless of merit, as opposed to less exceptional stories that get shared more inline with their truthfulness, and so statistically speaking an outlandish story is more likely to be a fake scare, whereas a mundane story is more likely to be true. Yet another factor to consider is absence of an attempt to get the other side of the story - no mention of trying to contact CPS, or District Attorney to get their comments on the case.
cpach 11y ago
From the guidelines: ”On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they’re evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. (...)” Flagged.
zeeed 11y ago
I think that no matter how close to the truth this particular story is, there are similar ones circulating on the web and the circumstance has also made it to John Oliver's show - which I believe does a lot with regard to credibility. We need to contrast this to stories like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677863 [How my father gave me a terrifying lesson at 10] which received overwhelmingly positive feedback on here. We are living in a society that has been induced with fear so much that parents give away the freedom even of their kids. I wonder what kind of people these kids will grow to become. And I wonder how many parents ask themselves this question.
drifter89 11y ago
This literally makes no sense to me. At 11, I used to run, ride my bike for miles by my self. Hell, if I go to my parents neighborhood now. There are kids playing outside all the time. By this logic, I can call the cops, and get the entire neighborhood arrested. Can't think of a normal adult that would support this.

121 points by avalaunch 11y ago

Your kids were without their parents for 90 minutes, so we're going to take them for 30 days.

dudul 11y ago

CPS are disgusting scum. This kind of story is reported every week. The government is criminalizing parenthood. Kids can't play in their backyard, they can't walk to the playground, they can't ride their bikes. Do people remember their childhood? When did Americans become so socially retarded?

kzhahou 11y ago
These cases are a tiny minority. CPS deals with real horrifying and tragic situations every day. I'm actually more shocked that there are prosecutors and even judges that go along with this BS. I can believe one insane activist CPS worker here and there, but an entire chain of people to back them up??
- mcphage 11y ago
  > CPS deals with real horrifying and tragic situations every day. That's what boggles my mind the most. Every time we hear about CPS they're overworked and have to deal with horrors I don't even want to imagine. But how do they have time to waste voluntarily ruining peoples' lives?
  - vacri 11y ago
    Well... let's not assume that the article has told the whole story. There's nothing independently verifiable in it.
  - Delmania 11y ago
    > But how do they have time to waste voluntarily ruining peoples' lives? Perception bias. The only time you'll hear about CPS is in a case like this, when the agent is on a power trip and oversteps his bounds. You never hear about the success stories, where they intervene to save a child, or are successful in getting a family therapy. I can speak from experience here, I have dealt with CPS. When I was notified they would be visiting our house, I did some research. I read the horror stories, and I learned a key detail: CPS is not a policing agency. The threats of taking your children from you and throwing you in jail are idle: only police and judges can do that. When you deal with CPS, only let them in your house if they agree to be recorded. If they refuse, or their supervisor objects, don't let them in. Unless they have a warrant, you are under NO obligation to deal with them. (Bear in mind, though, the courts will probably side with CPS) But I digress. My experience with the social worker was that she was just as nervous in dealing with me as I was with her, but she was genuinely interested in understanding and offering assistance. She asked a few questions, held a follow up visit, and that was the end of it.
yequalsx 11y ago
It started in the early 80s and culminated with the kidnapping of Jacob Weterling. During this time local and national news portrayed pedophiles and rapists as serious, common threats to children. There was the absurd McMartin daycare nonsense. The 80s were a time of relatively high crime and it was during this era that zero tolerance policies became the norm. It's when mandatory minimum sentences became the norm and punishments for crimes became very heavy. As I see things we lost our soul during this time and have not yet recovered it. At this time if you traveled overseas the first question people would ask is if it was safe. Justifying laws and policies in the name of safety was the way to get compliance from the citizenry. It still persists today though people are starting to see the bullshit. Note that the usual way politicians justify curbs on the internet is by mentioning child pornography.

PebblesHD 11y ago

I say this literally every time a story like this pops up but, as ever, I'll say it again: Have the (adults) in charge completely lost their minds? Is the government so out of touch with reality that this makes sense to them? I loved going on walks or riding my bike to the shops or sleeping in/playing at home when i was 10 or 11, and yet now this seems all but impossible to consider? How the hell did this happen?

dudul 11y ago
So true. When people are surprised when 1 boy out of 5 is diagnosed with ADHD. They can't do anything! They're freaking bored! Millenials are called weak, entitled and useless, but wait for the next cohort of "bright" minds who are gonna lead this country. Will they be able to even feed themselves? Is it even safe to teach a kid how to cook an egg?
vacri 11y ago
Are we being fed a heavily edited version of the story? Was there more to the parental history than is mentioned? Why hide the identity of the parents, given that they've already been through the wringer and the whole affair is a matter of public record? Given how overloaded CPS usually are, this article fails the sniff test.
graycat 11y ago
> How the hell did this happen? Standard: Some bad parents actually do exist. So, with a few such examples, some people who want to get attention get some laws passed and set up CPS with some really big powers, e.g., ones that violate little things like due process. Some of the laws mention felonies. Then the CPS department gets created, funded, and staffed. Then a phone call comes in, and CPS swings into action. Then, CPS wants to look busy, do their job, believes that they are now responsible for the child, wants to make sure nothing goes wrong where they could be blamed, so take full control of the life of the child, as their rules say, and to heck with anything like due process, the actual good of the child, the good of the family, etc. Instead, CPS becomes just law and rules driven. So, CPS is brain-dead, dysfunctional, dangerous, destructive, demented, deranged, etc. Why? They are just following the law and their rules to avoid any blame. So, CPS put a torpedo just below the waterline of that totally innocent family. They did psychological damage to the child; they harmed the sense of security of the family; they wasted the time of the family; the may have wrecked the family finances due to the legal costs. Earlier tonight I watched the Nova program on the June 6, 1944 Normandy landing. I was reminded of all the death and destruction fighting Hitler. But then with something like CPS and US police shooting unarmed Blacks in the back, etc., we are creating disasters out of nothing, nothing at all, disasters, out of nothing, for no good reason. The judge? He should have found a way to charge the CPS thugs, laughed their case out of court, and put the family back together. Since he didn't, he should get a new career cleaning sidewalks with a tooth brush -- "Nice and clean, now, y'hear?". CPS must report to a mayor or governor, etc. Well, with enough such stories, the mayor or whomever should ensure that the head of CPS and everyone involved in that case should join the judge in brushing the sidewalks. Part of the solution is sunlight, e.g., on the Internet. Too often our government has become just a dangerous enemy of the citizens. The citizens should vote for the needed changes. Due to CPS, every family with children is at risk of essentially just thugs from CPS wrecking their families, a greater risk than a bomb from a terrorist and comparably dangerous. TSA? Sure, they can steal money and valuables from your luggage and molest your wife and daughters. Gee, when I was 10 or so, I got a three speed bicycle, and then, especially during the summers, I was gone for hours at a time, sometimes 20 miles round trip. No problems. I was big for my age: If some CPS types had tried to do something to me, it would have been a fight, a real fight -- I would have defended myself from the CPS attackers. Sure, if I could have found a club, I would have beat them to a bloody pulp -- just ordinary self-defense. Government wants to grow, like poison ivy or worse. Have to cut it back. The key way: Just cut their budgets. How to do that? Sure, vote. Then get rid of the government thugs who attack citizens and get lower taxes. Read. Complain. Vote. Solve the problem. That's what our democracy is for and some of why we really need democracy. Else the government will grow and grow and become a hostile occupying force in our country like Hitler occupied Poland. In Normandy is a cemetery with, as I recall from the Nova program, 9000 graves of US soldiers who fought for our freedom. Well, we should not let out of control government do to us what Hitler would have done.

13years 11y ago

Basically this is the evolution towards Minority Report. We are destroying the concept of innocent until proven guilty and are convicting people for what might happen instead of what did happen.

hippich 11y ago

I am foreigner, so could someone explain to me - why this is happening? From my discussion similar incidents with other parents it seems like everybody not sure why such attitude exists today. I mean, it should be same adults who have no clue why it is done, pass and enforce these laws?

dylanjermiah 11y ago
Democracy, where the intention for 'safety' and 'protecting children' is valued above the actual results.
ars 11y ago
There's a reason it's on the news, this is not a common thing.
randxx 11y ago
As an American who spends a lot of time in other countries, here's my best, shortest attempt to explain: 1) The cultural trust and norms in our country are dead. Everything gets the most superficial consideration, there's no basis of reasonableness such that even the judge doesn't stop the machine, power is so distributed that there's no reasonable authority in place, and people like CPS -- who have difficult and challenging and necessary jobs -- don't know how to recognize "normal" when they see it. American has no "normal" anymore, and everyone acts based on their greatest fears, informed by our weird local news, NCIS/Law&Order fear-mongering mentality. We used to have class divisions that kept things a little normal within class lines, now class divisions have been destroyed such that everyone's caught in a race to the bottom. 1b) I like to think I'm not really subject to #1, being an upper middle class white professional... but I live in a relatively urban environment, with a pre-teen child, and there's a sense that one socially construed "accident" can send me into a can of worms that can take years to climb out of. So, until then, I'll assume I'm relatively untouchable, because I'm not really sure what else my option is. I can see relocating, to one of my international anchor points.. permanently, at some point. 2) There's a strong tinge of "fuck them" or "they have no right" or "they shouldn't" in a lot of American interactions now, whether formal or otherwise. People are endlessly bothered by things they aren't affected by. I mean, it's not everywhere... American culture is now a corporate construct designed to make everyone in its demographic purview feel strongly about something that doesn't matter to them, whether it's escapees with big dicks or the Kardashians. Radio plays the same 10 songs over and over and over again so you have to hit scan and your radio takes you through stations back to news anchor talking about news that doesn't matter. And if you get home and turn on the TV you're assaulted by the local news anchors with "news you can trust" or weather reports "you can count on", and when you ignore that your co-worker at work will just force it down your throat anyway, and you'll pretend to go along with it so as to have some minor smidgeon of false rapport, lest you come off as anti-social or.. critical. I was just at a farmer's market tonight where kids ran free and cops patted kids on the head and dogs were off leash and people were eating ice cream and yelling and laughing. But it just takes one person, with a spiteful "I'll get 'em..." trigger to bring an invisible avalanche into the room. I think it's worse in urban areas and in suburban areas, which is why I've been living in medium sized "towns" with urban centers. There seems to be less of that in that kind of neighborly construct. But neither can we talk about places like urban California, suburban California, and rural California in equal terms that cover those places, but also midwestern areas or southern areas or bible belt areas. We're not one country anymore, and we have no norms, and people are always told that someone, somewhere is taking shit from them, whether it's terrorists, the emboldened, or the entitled. There are each of those, but fewer bothering each of us in actuality. But lots of people can't see the normal in the normal anymore, either.

femto 11y ago

> The parents decided to have them placed with a slightly problematic in-state relative instead. Leaving out any issues of rights, that's the biggest issue here: that children get moved from a safe situation into a more dangerous one, in the name of keeping them safe. Take this recent case in Australia [1]. A father cared enough about his child to voluntarily put him in the state's care, whilst he sorted himself out. The child never came home, as the state placed the child in an unsafe home, and he drowned. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parents-demand-answers-after-toddler-drowned-in-foster-carers-pool-20150522-gh77bt.html http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parents-demand-answers-after-toddl...

melvinmt 11y ago

In other news today: http://www.kltv.com/story/29290704/police-video-shows-officer-questioning-about-lemonade-stand-permit http://www.kltv.com/story/29290704/police-video-shows-office...

welly 11y ago

I hate to be that person but this isn't the actions of a country that prides itself as being free. Sadly, it's not an isolated case either. I've read numerous similar accounts of such things occurring. Along with the "lemonade stand permit", it's bewildering. I realise that in the grand scheme, these are fairly unique but you simply don't hear about such things happening in Europe, in Australia or in the middle and far East. Perhaps it's a case of similar cases happening in other nations but just not reported on so much. Why do we keep reading stories like this and the deluge of police brutality and other wacky stories coming out of the USA?

ddingus 11y ago
Authoritarians. They are the ones escalating all this petty garbage, IMHO.
vacri 11y ago
in Australia So, in Victoria at least, it was recently made illegal to leave your kids in the car for any length of time. Going inside to pay at the petrol station? Take your kids with you. Admittedly it's not going to end you up in the middle of the story in the article, and you're going to have to be pretty unlucky to find a cop who's enough of a dickhead to apply this law apropos of no other issues, but technically it's now illegal to do so.
- ryan-allen 11y ago
  Really? Holy crap! I live in Victoria (don't have kids), and this is news to me. I remember that it's illegal to leave your kids in cars on hot days, but that's it.
  - vacri 11y ago
    State legislation rarely makes the news, unless it's about a new highway somewhere :) Last Week Tonight did an episode on how state legislatures in the US are passing heaps of legislation "on the sly" (scare quotes because it's not really sly, just no-one watches them...), and it's similar over here. Hell, I keep forgetting our current premier's name, and I voted for him... and I couldn't tell you the name of a single other state politician who isn't a party leader. I've even forgotten the name of the guy involved in the union scandal last week...

VieElm 11y ago

Here's a similar case where a writer left her son in her car for a few minutes in a parking lot at a store: http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_day_i_left_my_son_in_the_car/ http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_day_i_left_my_son_in_the...

mapt 11y ago
"At the time of the incident, he never mentioned what had happened, and I assumed that he was unaware, that the best thing would be not to bring it up. But, of course, kids are astute observers and somewhere along the line, he figured it out. I got out of the car one day to feed the parking meter next to the driver side window. “Don’t, Mommy. Don’t. The police will come.” I went to let the dog into our front yard while he was watching his morning cartoon. “Mommy, no!!! The police.” One afternoon after his swim lesson, he came out of the bathroom and for a second didn’t see me — I’d kneeled down to get his shoes from their cubby. When I looked up he was crying. “Mommy, mommy, I thought someone was going to steal me.” That evening I sat him down and tried to explain it. I told him that he was right, that mommy had left him in the car for a few minutes one time and that was a mistake. I wasn’t supposed to do that. But it was all going to be fine now. Mommy wasn’t going to jail. And no one was going to kidnap him! “Most people,” I told him, “are not trying to hurt you. Most people are good people. Do you understand? You don’t have to be afraid?” He nodded slowly, but I could see from his face that he only half believed me."

jbigelow76 11y ago

Maybe it's just me but I'm having a hard time taking this story seriously. The list of affronts visited on the family (strip searches, cops pissing on property, foster worse than the parents, humiliation of the parents by the state) makes it a story sound almost too good to be true if you are looking to rile up your readership. No identifying information is another big red flag, the parents of the free range kids hassled for letting their kids walk a mile to the park were all over media but this even more horrible (if true) story of kids being taken away for playing in the back yard is totally anonymous? Come on. The bar to get me to hate on bureaucratic drones is pretty low, over shoot it too much and you take the fun away.

ghaff 11y ago
Yeah, I don't much care for the apparent general trend and there have certainly been some documented cases that are pretty ridiculous. I daresay things that I did as a child at various ages would shock a lot of people today. That said, this particular story is from: Lenore Skenazy is host of the reality show “World’s Worst Mom” on the Discovery Life Channel, starting Jan. 22. She is also a public speaker and founder of the book and blog Free-Range Kids. That doesn't make it wrong. But it clearly comes from someone who is on a particular side of the issue. And a quick search doesn't uncover original reportage from elsewhere. So color me skeptical.
jpatokal 11y ago
Per the details in the original post, she is employed by a school, and has been suspended and told to not to talk to media until this is over: http://www.freerangekids.com/boy-11-plays-basketball-in-own-yard-as-he-awaits-delayed-parents-cops-take-him-brother-away-for-a-month/ http://www.freerangekids.com/boy-11-plays-basketball-in-own-... And given the steady stream of well-documented, actual and equally ridiculous cases like this on Free Range Kids, I doubt this is a prank.
- tsotha 11y ago
  They want to make an example out of her.
- 11y ago

IvyMike 11y ago

Is there any corroboration of the story, or a response by CPS and/or the court? It's very possible I missed it, but neither the article nor the comments give a solid source other than the parents. Because the skeptic in me says that while CPS might be pretty bad, it's also not inconceivable that the aggrieved parents might leave out key details of the story. So I'd like to hear what CPS (or really, any other source) has to say before I get too up-in-arms here.

reagency 11y ago
It's not fair when one side (the state) intentionally gag-orders everyone, to use their silence as proof that nothing happened.

fsloth 11y ago

While the story is of course fucked up the comments about CPS being some kind brownshirt-nanny corps are perhaps a bit overblown? There are actually people who do more harm than good to their kids and that's the reason I suppose these procedures exist. I would say it is the 'common standard' of what constitues a negligence that is the twisted thing here. Normal kids don't need a 24 hour supervisor once they go to school.

pg_is_a_butt 11y ago

fuck all of you idiots. america is doomed and you are personally to blame. yes, YOU, idiot.

isaacg 11y ago

I looked up the relevant part of the legal code: 3)(a) "Neglect of a child" means: 1. A caregiver's failure or omission to provide a child with the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain the child's physical and mental health, including, but not limited to, food, nutrition, clothing, shelter, supervision, medicine, and medical services that a prudent person would consider essential for the well-being of the child; or 2. A caregiver's failure to make a reasonable effort to protect a child from abuse, neglect, or exploitation by another person. Neglect of a child may be based on repeated conduct or on a single incident or omission that results in, or could reasonably be expected to result in, serious physical or mental injury, or a substantial risk of death, to a child. If I'm reading it correctly, an incident like this could have been legal grounds to charge the parents with neglect if and only if it was repeated conduct - e.g., they had repeatedly locked the kid out of the house. If not, any judge would through this case out immediately. Note: I'm not a lawyer and may be entirely wrong.

tptacek 11y ago
To prove the crime of Neglect of a Child, the State must prove the following three elements beyond a reasonable doubt: 1. (Defendant) a. [willfully] [by culpable negligence] failed or omitted to provide (victim) with the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain (victim’s) physical or mental health. b. failed to make a reasonable effort to protect (victim) from abuse, neglect, or exploitation by another person. 2. (Defendant) was a caregiver for (victim). 3. (Victim) was under the age of 18 years. Florida jury instructions.
- visarga 11y ago
  Failed to provide "care, supervision, and services" for 17 year olds? I hoped at 14 they declare the kids grown up.

xahrepap 11y ago

Foster parent here (from another state than in the article). I'm going to go a bit off topic, but I want to comment on this snippet: > [The kids had been eating] [o]nly 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. There's probably a good reason for that: the foster parents couldn't get the kids to eat anything else! Perhaps they were really nervous and uncomfortable? When I'm nervous, it's hard to eat other foods like vegetables and meats. Sometimes cereal is all I can stomach. I could only imagine how those poor, confused kids felt. We were trained to feed the kids what they would eat. That means if they want a hot dog every night, you give them a freaking hot dog every night. Sometimes keeping the kid within whatever is left of their comfort zone is more important than good nutrition. As time goes on, you start mixing things up and start giving them better food. But out the gate, the most important thing is to help the kids feel comfortable. People like the author of this article seem to love to paint foster parents in a bad light. They have this weird mentality I don't understand. They don't care about the facts, they're just looking for anything to make everyone from the state to look like incompetent scum. Look even at this quote: > The kids are attending "play" therapy. Maybe it's because the whole article is horribly negative and lacking any kind of reference (even all the names are made up to "protect the innocent" or whatever), but I feel like that is sarcasm. And the sarcasm in that sentence demonstrates how much the author doesn't know. "Play" therapy is a real thing, and it really helps the kids. It's not some crazy witchcraft the state thought up. The kids might've been "normal" before this all happened, but it's important to get kids in this situation (even the ones that weren't abused/neglected/etc, like the children in the article) to make sure they're getting the help that they need to cope with the CURRENT situation. We always try to get our foster kids in play therapy, even if they act completely "normal" and understanding of everything. The thing I don't want is to think the kid is okay and then find out they've been holding it all back.

neilcrj 11y ago
> The thing I don't want is to think the kid is okay and then find out they've been holding it all back. Great insight. Kids at that age are looking for parental/adult approval and they know that the adults around them want them to be "okay." They can hide a lot of emotions if they think they'll be loved more for being "normal."

DenisM 11y ago

The article is likely a fake, a grown up version of the children camp horror story, and it gets retold for the same reason. In a quality news article you have to have answers to three questions: who, where, when. These three are necessary to verify claims independently, and their absence is highly suspect. There are exceptions to the rule - sometimes a journalist has to protect the people involved, such as in the case of a vulnerable crime victim or a political whistleblower (Watergate, Snowden), but then we're basically relying on the reputation on the journalist or the newspaper in question - a track record of getting scandalous stories right. In this case there is no reason to hide the names, dates, or location (as the neighbors already know and the court records are open), and there is no way to ascertain the credibility of the news source. Absence of both a credible source and a credible reporter to vouch for the anonymous source breaks the chain of credibility - the article might as well be made up, and it usually is. Another suspicious factor is that the claims are so outlandish - the more outrageous the claim, the more likely its a fake. When a reader is frightened or outraged he is more likely to disregard caution and share the story, and so it goes viral. For that reason outlandish stories are more likely to get shared regardless of merit, as opposed to less exceptional stories that get shared more inline with their truthfulness, and so statistically speaking an outlandish story is more likely to be a fake scare, whereas a mundane story is more likely to be true. Yet another factor to consider is absence of an attempt to get the other side of the story - no mention of trying to contact CPS, or District Attorney to get their comments on the case.

cpach 11y ago

From the guidelines: ”On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they’re evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. (...)” Flagged.

zeeed 11y ago

I think that no matter how close to the truth this particular story is, there are similar ones circulating on the web and the circumstance has also made it to John Oliver's show - which I believe does a lot with regard to credibility. We need to contrast this to stories like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677863 [How my father gave me a terrifying lesson at 10] which received overwhelmingly positive feedback on here. We are living in a society that has been induced with fear so much that parents give away the freedom even of their kids. I wonder what kind of people these kids will grow to become. And I wonder how many parents ask themselves this question.

drifter89 11y ago

This literally makes no sense to me. At 11, I used to run, ride my bike for miles by my self. Hell, if I go to my parents neighborhood now. There are kids playing outside all the time. By this logic, I can call the cops, and get the entire neighborhood arrested. Can't think of a normal adult that would support this.