Man killed during dispute regarding Child Protective Services action

[glockman]

Whoa-2 posts in one night, a record for me

I have a neighbor going thru a nasty divorce, his ex called cps and filed a false report of sexual molestation on him. When they arrived they demanded entry and access to the children. He point blank refused so they said "fine we'll be back with the sheriff and a warrant. Thats a violation of their own SOP. Too bad he didn't have a tape recorder because they denied saying it when he filed a complaint.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

I dunno. Anybody disordered enough to attack someone with a machete who's standing next to an armed sheriff's deputy is probably not sane enough to raise children IMO.

Yeah, he should definitely have taken out the more dangerous threat first. Poor judgment on his part, but one tends to lose one's cool when their children are being threatened, which might explain his going for the unarmed individual first.

I guess our founding fathers were all abusive parents, because I'll bet not a one had indoor running water.

 

[jefnvk]

was investigating a complaint that three children were living in a home near Curlew without running water or electricity when she was attacked by the children's father, State Patrol trooper Jim Hays said.

So, when are they going to start picking up the Amish children

 

[LawDog]

A state social worker, attacked by a machete-wielding angry father during a child welfare check, was released from a hospital Thursday.

The father, 35-year-old Bryan S. Russell, was shot and killed Wednesday by a Ferry County sheriff's deputy who had accompanied two welfare workers on the visit in northeast Washington, Ferry County Sheriff Pete Warner said.

The Washington State Patrol is investigating the shooting, Trooper Jim Hays said Thursday.

Child Protective Services worker Edith Vance was treated for defensive wounds to her arms, wrists and shoulders, state Department of Social and Health Services spokeswoman Kathy Spears said from Olympia.

Vance was cut with a machete and beaten a 2-by-4 board, Spears said.

Russell and his family, including three children aged 1, 3 and 5, were living in two old buses in a remote area near Curlew, about 100 miles north of Spokane.

Vance and the other CPS worker had gone to visit the family because of earlier problems, Spears said.

Although she could not discuss specifics, Spears said police had received reports that there were "concerns about living in two buses with no electricity; conditions that obviously were not very safe for the children."

Russell had previous criminal convictions for assault, drug possession and failure to appear for a court appearance, Warner said.

He declined to release the name of the deputy, who was placed on routine administrative leave while the shooting investigation continues.

The children have been placed in foster care and their mother will have the opportunity to try to get them back, Spears said. The woman was present during Wednesday's violence, the sheriff said earlier.

"We will work with the court system to determine a permanent arrangement," Spears said. "We will have to assess the safety of returning the children to their mother. We need to ensure they have a safe place to live. There are a lot of issues that need to be resolved through the court system."

Threats against child welfare workers are not uncommon, and law enforcement officers frequently accompany them, particularly when there is no court order, Spears said.

Law enforcement officers are the ones who would actually remove a child to CPS custody, she said.

"I think every day, there is concern about danger. There is also stress over the secondary trauma of seeing abused, neglected kids over time that can get pretty damaging," Spears said.

"Every worker has concern in the back of his or her mind every time they go out to meet with parents," she said. "But nobody can recall something this serious and brutal."

Both Vance and the other social worker, who was not injured, will be granted leave to recover from the trauma, Spears said. She did not identify the other worker.
By JOHN K. WILEY / Associated Press

LawDog

 

[one45auto]

"We will work with the court system to determine a permanent arrangement," Spears said. "We will have to assess the safety of returning the children to their mother. We need to ensure they have a safe place to live. There are a lot of issues that need to be resolved through the court system."

Translation? "We're going to crawl up the mother's colon with a microscope and determine just how much we're going to micromanage her life from here on out because we're omnipotent and know what's best for everyone involved."

I'm with Sindawe on this one.

 

[c_yeager]

Yeah, he should definitely have taken out the more dangerous threat first. Poor judgment on his part, but one tends to lose one's cool when their children are being threatened, which might explain his going for the unarmed individual first.

Another explanation for his behavior is that he is a raging lunatic with a criminal record the length of my forearm who keeps his children living in filth. Of course THAT explanation actually fits the available facts. But, hey keep painting this "victim of circumstance" as the true wronged party here.

Lets just PRETEND for a moment that this was all some horrible mistake and that every conviction and alleged abuse on this guy's record are made up. Even asuming that what kind of father decides to take a machete to someone in front of his kids? It sounds to me like his ego was a LOT more important than his own children. Of course based on the available evidence it appears that a LOT of things are more important than his children.

 

[beerslurpy]

Good, let THEM live in fear for awhile. I've seen first hand, and read of many many others cases, where CPS are drunk with their own "authority" and think they can do as the **** well please.

I've known way too many people who have experienced similar problems with power trippping CPS in both FL and CA and Ive heard way too many horror stories from parents I know about their kids being hounded at school by social workers trying to find kids that they can make wards of. You often get the impression that they are desperate to catch a parent daring to spank a child just so they can justify their existance.

Assuming I someday become a parent... if CPS ever comes for my kids, there will be a gunfight, the likes of which my county has not seen since the War Between The States.

 

[Sindawe]

I'd be interested in what you have seen.

When I was 12, I was a bit of a truant, finding chaising spiders and bugs more interesting than sitting a classroom while my classmates learned the stuff I already knew. CPS sent caseworker to school on one of the rare days I was there. The inept fool tried to manipulate me into admiting that my parents were abusing my little sister and I. Even went to far as to say that the police would come and search my home, taking us away.

"On what grounds, with what warrant?" I asked.

"WE don't need one." stated the CPS caseworker.

"Wrong, here, let me show you." and pulled out the pocket book copy of the U.S. Consitution my GMother had given me two years before, pointed to the 4th Amendment.

The did not bother me again.

---------------

Several years later, but before Colorado passed the "Make my day law", I was visiting a friend after school and was talking about Dungeons&Dragons. Being late spring, we had the main door open, but the screen door closed, to catch the breeze. CPS had reason to call on the friends family, and when my friend said that his parents were not home, the female CPS worker opened the screen door and said she was going to check things out anyway. I told me friend to call the cops if she did not leave right now. She left.

---------------

Several years after that, a different friend and his wife of the time had a child. My friend and his wife were both naturally thin and slight of stature. Of course, the child tended to be the same. CPS decided that the child was sufffering from "failure to thrive" since he was small and thin for his age group (Well, DUH!), and took the child from his home. Lawyers got involved, and it took a couple of months before the child was back in his home. Sadly, he has not been right since, more than 20 years later.

-----------------

Later reading of other experiences leads me to believe that Colorado CPS a particularly bad bunch. Other states may be better, but the cases I've read about tell otherwise.

 

[rick newland]

A little case here in Huntsville two weeks about two blocks from where I work. No water or electric. Kids not in school. And nobody really checked up on it. Turns out woman starved her three kids to death.

 

[c_yeager]

A little case here in Huntsville two weeks about two blocks from where I work. No water or electric. Kids not in school. And nobody really checked up on it. Turns out woman starved her three kids to death.

Same thing happened in Seattle not too long ago. This was an apartment though so they probably had water/electric but the kids starved to death when mommy was home too drunk to feed them. The sad part is that CPS was called out to the home twice prior to the deaths and did nothing. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.

 

[Barbara]

In my experience, CPS is too over-booked and under-interested to bother with children who are being abused and neglected, let alone stealing kids who aren't. Not saying it doesn't happen, but its not been my experience at all.

 

[TallPine]

Ok, well I have to admit that the one run in that we had with "CPS" people went pretty well. Some people (who had it in for us for other reasons) had made a bunch of outrageously false accusations which were dispelled with one visit talking to us on the porch. They "closed the case" within 24 hrs and I don't know if any further reports were received but if so I'm sure they were ignored.

But the 2 things that made me mad about this were:
1) they would not tell us who made the allegations in order to take legal actions against them
2) when we sought legal protection for our kids against certain residents (non-family) in town, we got nowhere. Seems as though no-contact or ROs could only be obtained against family members

We finally had to just move out of town because our kids were so terrified.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

The problem with giving a government agency this kind of power is that although most agents are reasonable, some will not be, and that's when rights are violated and lives ruined.

Apparently, though, this whole phenomenon is not a new thing. A friend of my grandparents, who passed away a few years ago, had always been weak minded (read, below average intelligence). When she was a young women back in the 1940s, I am told from reliable sources, she gave birth to a child out of wedlock, which child was promptly and unceremoniously removed from her custody, against her will. Don't know what agency did it, but some agency of government was behind it. So, I guess this is not a new phenomenon.

 

[Hypnogator]

Jeez Louise! This thread sure got hijacked into a referendum on CPS functions from the get-go.

Bottom line: Regardless of the grounds for CPS being there, can anyone justify a grown man attacking two women with a machete?

Good shoot, Deputy! Some people just need killin'.

 

[one45auto]

Good shoot, Deputy! Some people just need killin'.

That's what the father in this case was thinking, too.

 

[YammyMonkey]

Every agency has problems, and problem people whether public or private. CPS workers do a very hard job, usually working under unrealistic regs for little pay dealing with, many more times than not, some of the worst people in society. As it is, they're not allowed to be armed with even pepper spray.

Most, if there is a BS claim, will be able to spot it pretty quickly and will usually inform the person being victimized that what is going on is cause for legal recourse. Will also inform the person making the claims that what they are doing is illegal and if they continue they'll be the ones on trial.

My wife has spent some time as a CPS worker, here are some examples of what she's been through:

Dealing with Hunter Thompson luring young girls to his place, using them as he pleases then kicking them out.

Walking into a house with odd-looking walls only to have the cop with her shine his light on the walls and watch the entire thing scatter. Roaches covered every inch.

As previously stated, feces and urine in closets, tubs, toilets, beds kids were sleeping in.

Many, many drug-addicted newborns.

Being threatened by numerous clients, one in particular had just gotten out of prison for 2nd degree murder.

A 19 year old girl who had 6 kids, all removed for various reasons, oldest one being 7 years old.

Multiple abuses resulting in brain injuries, broken bones, permanent scarring and death.

I think you get the idea. As it is, we don't really know what the conditions on-site were like except it kinda sounds like the Manson-family homestead. Bottom line is that these people face situations that are every bit as dangerous as those faced by police, but are not allowed to be armed in any way. That is just plain wrong. My wife is pregnant these days and we're both looking for jobs. Not a chance in hades that she'll be going back to that line of work.

 

[lwsimon]

Well, I can see both sides of a story here. If the father was NOT abusing his children, and was simply unable - or even unwilling - to provide modern conveniences for his family, he had every right to protect the unity of his family, even with deadly force - and yes, even with deadly force against females.

HOWEVER, it is much more likely he was a moron who drank too much and wasn't even in full control of his senses the moment he died. If that is the case, may god have mercy on his soul, for he will need it.


Now, for the thread's new topic, CPS.

I have learned to hate CPS. I've had 3 dealing with them, one of which is on-going. The first was when I was about 7 years old, and decided to shoplift in Walmart. Ouch. I quickly learned the error of my ways, aided by my dad''s belt. The next day, a worker came to my house and tried for at least an hour to get me to tell her that my dad was beating me. I told her very clearly - I was an articulate child - that my dad punished me, but I was never injured. ThShe wouldn't take no for an answer. That was cleared up fairly quickly, but it was a very lucid moment for me to realise there was a person, in my house, from the 'government' who wanted to take me away from my parents.

The second was in jr. high, when a female friend of mine came to school one day complaining of stomach cramps. She eventually confided in me that she had been.... forcefully sexually abused by her father. I called CPS myself, twice, but she was never contacted. I later helped her 'run away'. I collected coins and stamps, and I cashed in the majority of my collection to buy her a bus ticket to a relative's home in a neighboring state. We walked about 30 miles together through the woods, and I stayed with her until the bus arrived. Her relative met her at the other end, and she lived with her until she moved out for college.

Finally, I'm currently trying to motivate CPS to act on an OBVIOUS abuse case involving a 5 year old girl. I see her once per week, and every week she has new bruises - but only in places where normal clothes cover, such as upper arms, legs, and stomach. I've reported via phone twice, and in person once, yet the most they will do is "document". They've come to me while the little gril was in my presence, and taken some photographs - after much harassment on my part to do SOMETHING - but they have not confronted the father. The case is further bolstered by the fact that she tells a very concise and clear story as to what happens to her at home, and she has also confided in a teacher at school. The teacher has also filed a report, yet no action has been taken.

 

[roo_ster]

Grim Reaper: 1, HST: 0

YammyMonkey wrote:

Dealing with Hunter Thompson luring young girls to his place, using them as he pleases then kicking them out.

Not a problem any more...

Hunter Thompson Kills Self



A bit of commentary form James Lileks:

I posted the Bleat, then hit the wires: whoa. Hunter S. Thompson and Sandra Dee died on the same Yahoo most-emailed page. There’s some telling symmetry in that. Dee, who died of organ failure, was a sunny perky teen idol with a dark past – sexual abuse, domineering show-biz mom, public divorce, alcoholism, health ills. But she “turned her life around,†in the lingo of Behind the Scenes; she had a good last act, and she didn’t trade on her pains to craft a public persona. People think "Sandra Dee," they think the happy teen Tammy still.

HST killed himself. He never would have “turned his life around†– that’s a hard thing to try when the room’s been spinning for 40 years. Depression? Wouldn’t be surprising. A bad verdict from the doc? Wouldn’t be surprising. A great writer in his prime, but the DVD of his career would have the last two decades on the disc reserved for outtakes and bloopers. It was all bile and spittle at the end, and it was hard to read the work without smelling the dank sweat of someone consumed by confusion, anger, sudden drunken certainties and the horrible fear that when he sat down to write, he could only muster a pale parody of someone else’s satirical version of his infamous middle period. I feel sorry for him, but I’ve felt sorry for him for years. File under Capote, Truman – meaning, whatever you thought of the latter-day persona, don’t forget that there was a reason he had a reputation. Read "Hell's Angels." That was a man who could hit the keys right.

 

[TallPine]

As it is, we don't really know what the conditions on-site were like except it kinda sounds like the Manson-family homestead.

See ... that is just a blatant assumption ...

When our daughters were born, and for their first two summers, we lived in an 8x28 trailer in logging camp. We happened to have power, since it was on private land, but the water system was a spring and buckets. I suppose that would be illegal now, but no one was the worse for it.

Not everyone gets to have active beaver ponds in your "front yard"

 

[SteveS]

Sindawe, that is too bad. If that had happened to me, I'd probably not be all that impressed with CPS. Like I said before, there are good and bad elements, just like there are good and bad ________.

I am familiar with specific cases of CPS workers behaving overzealously. OTOH, I am familiar with hundreds of cases of people losing thier kids because they deserved it. I am not talking about spanking or not hainvg running water, I am talking about:
-beating your kids with 2x4's and cast iron pans.
-pimping your 6 year old to pay for your drug habit.
-letting your live-in boyfriend molest your mentally retarded 9 year old daughter.

I think these happen far more often then this:

You often get the impression that they are desperate to catch a parent daring to spank a child just so they can justify their existance.

I am not suggesting that there aren't abuses. There are, and I think the workers that are abusive should be fired or prosecuted, or in some way weeded out of CPS.

 

[beerslurpy]

I think that the CPS system varies from state to state. Almost every parent (and a CPS worker I know) here tells me that the CPS system in the deep southern states (FL, MS, AL, GA) have very poorly run systems that are tremendously overburdened. There also seems to be a significant amount of child abuse going on in the southern states as well, probably as an indirect result of poverty and poor education.

In CA, I can think of no real justification for the way CPS behaved in the 2 cases I am aware of, except that CPS was just powertripping. The neighborhood involved was very affluent and the parents involved were neither spanking nor depriving their children of anything except the freedom to leave the house when they were grounded.

 

[Art Eatman]

My mother was a clinic director in Florida's mental health system from 1955 through 1972. She worked with CPS folks; I picked up a fair amount of information about how the system worked. Her view was of good people with inadequate budget.

Fast forward to more modern times and the way laws are written:

Florida law says that if there is a complaint lodged with CPS against you, you stay in the computer for two years even if the complaint is not justified.

Roughly ten years back, a couple had a complaint lodged against them: They were locking two-year-old Samantha in the bathroom every day while they both were at work. It turned out that, yes, it was true.

But Samantha was a pet raccoon.

Regardless, they stayed in the computer for two years, with (SFAIK) fairly easy access for employers and such. All that was listed therein was that a complaint had been lodged.

The Bureaucrat In Charge told the Tallahassee Democrat that there was no legal authority to remove the names, even in a "joke" situation.

It's not just parents or CPS field folks who cause problems; it's (as usual) legislatures and Big Bureaucrats as well...

Art

 

[HungSquirrel]

I remember when I was young, I could swear that my butt was bleeding after disobeying what my folks said or if I would misbehave in public. And back then, discipline like that was common and usually resulted in an immediate change in a kids attitude. Mistreatment?

YES. Any 'discipline' that escalates to the point of bruising or bleeding has gone way over the line. You have a right to discipline your child, not to maim him.

 

[YammyMonkey]

My Manson-family homestead comment was meant to be light-hearted and was in NO way meant to demean anyone living in the woods with or without running water and beaver ponds.

Guess I should learn how to use those smileys huh

 

[SteveS]

I'd like to bring this back on topic. The most disturbing aspect of this article was that the worker was denied any type of weapon for self-defense. CPS seems like the kind of job where it might be a good idea to be armed.

At my job employees are not allowed to carry any kind of weapon. I wouldn't consider my job to have a high degree of danger, but I have been threatened and others have been assaulted while at work. Management does provide a class on "de-escalating a threatening situation" and has placed sign on the door that say NO WEAPONS. I am curious. How many of you work in places where you are denied the basic right of self-protection?