
11-Year-Old Boy Played in His Yard. CPS Took Him, Felony Charge for Parents - avalaunch
http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-yard-cps-t
======
jbigelow76
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.

~~~
jpatokal
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-...](http://www.freerangekids.com/boy-11-plays-basketball-in-own-yard-as-
he-awaits-delayed-parents-cops-take-him-brother-away-for-a-month/)

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.

~~~
jbigelow76
I don't think it's _impossible_ that this story is true, nor do I think it's a
prank, but I wonder if the original author were pressed for identifying
details if they would claim it was an amalgamation of different cases crafted
into one "cautionary tale".

------
PebblesHD
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?

~~~
rbcgerard
Agreed, in the summers (in small town america), when i was that age i was
kicked out of the house after breakfast and not allowed back (unless it was
raining) until lunch, and then kicked out again until dinner. I loved running
around outside with my friends, our dogs, horrendously constructed forts, and
our bb guns. The "bad" parents were the ones that let their kids stay home and
vegetate in front of the TV. What happened?

~~~
icebraining
_The "bad" parents were the ones that let their kids stay home and vegetate in
front of the TV._

I believe that's still considered true, the "good parents" will instead
arrange for the kids to have lots of supervised activities and organized play
dates. It's all about making sure the kids have no space to make their own
mistakes.

------
femto
> 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-
toddl...](http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parents-demand-answers-after-toddler-
drowned-in-foster-carers-pool-20150522-gh77bt.html)

------
DenisM
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.

------
xahrepap
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.

~~~
EGreg
The CURRENT situation makes the kids worse off in the name of making them
better? I'd rather take having my parents late without keys for 90 minutes
than being taken away from my family by force and have to grow up who knows
where at age 10. And these kids from broken families then do worse in life. No
offense to foster parents, there is a great need to take kids in after REAL
disasters where THEY want to leVe - ones where the parents are actually unfit
or dead. When does leaving a kid to play in a yard the equivalent of being an
angry drunk who beats your kid?

~~~
xahrepap
I struggle to find in my comment where I say that's okay.

> No offense to foster parents, there is a great need to take kids in after
> REAL disasters

None taken, but you seem to think foster parents are somehow involved in the
removal process. Here's how it really works:

-Phone rings -Hello Mr. Foster, I have 3 siblings that I need to place. [Description of what they know]. Do you think this would be a good fit for your family? -Yes -Thank you. Can you pick them up at [location]?

I have no chance to say, "sorry, I believe you shouldn't have removed them.
Please send them home." I mean, I can say that. But it wouldnt do any good.
only the judge can make that call (in my state). I will, however, have an
opportunity to expressy opinion based on how I feel after talking with the
kid(s) over a period of time.

Obviously what is described in this article is a horrible situation. All I'm
saying is that the way they describe the foster parent feeding the kids only
cereal is most likely not hypocritical or even a problem. It's more likely
them focusing on getting the kid to eat _anything_.

~~~
EGreg
Oh, I see. If that's all you were saying then I wasn't responding to that. And
I didn't mean to imply that the foster parents are responsible for the kids
being taken away. Although it is good to know the foster parents can really
have a voice in the process after talking with the kid, who may insist that
they want to be back home.

I'm just saying the SYSTEM seems broken if one phonecall from a stranger can
turn average parents into felons and kids into effectively orphans.

~~~
xahrepap
At least where I live, as the case progresses and the foster parents create a
bond with the kids, they really take what the foster parents say in heavy
consideration. Especially if the kids have been assigned a good Guardian Ad
Litem (the child's own lawyer).

The system can be broken. This is something that's governed very differently
between states. And some states are far more broken than others. I think Utah
(where I live) has a very good system (one of the few government programs I've
learned a lot about and haven't been frustrated with how my tax dollars are
spent). The numbers I'm familiar with say that 66% of all cases end with the
kids going home with the parents. However, another statistic that makes that
number much more impressive is that 75% of all cases, meth is involved in the
home. So the state really works hard with the biological parents and places a
heavy emphasis on reunification (as long as the kids will be safe from illegal
activities) and the bio parents get a lot of government supported rehab no
matter what the case is (ranging from parenting classes to alcohol/drug
rehab). If you do the math, that means a lot of parents are successfully
getting the rehab they need to they can support their children. I think that's
impressive.

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

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

------
VieElm
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...](http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_day_i_left_my_son_in_the_car/)

~~~
mapt
"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."

------
zeeed
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.

------
welly
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?

~~~
vacri
_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
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
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...

------
isaacg
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
_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
Failed to provide "care, supervision, and services" for 17 year olds?

I hoped at 14 they declare the kids grown up.

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

------
fsloth
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.

------
cpach
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.

------
drifter89
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.

------
dudul
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
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
> 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?

~~~
Delmania
> 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.

------
hippich
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?

~~~
randxx
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.

~~~
Dizzident
It's not happening in the US only either...large parts of the EU have to deal
with this bureaucracy, and the EU itself is probably the biggest bureaucracy
of them all.

You're mentioning you're upper middle class...middle class doesn't exist
anymore, you're a peasant like the rest of us.

You're right on the other hand about living in rural areas. I moved with my
wife and kids from a big city 7 years ago to a small village and never
regretted that decision.

~~~
randxx
"middle class doesn't exist anymore"

100% agree with that. It's an outdated reference, like class and norms.

I'm familiar with the European beauracracy. It's not good either, but it seems
to cut across a different part of the social infrastructure. It's a big
bother, makes everything very difficult (like starting a business), but it's
also tuned towards dealing with the melting pot-ness of the European identity
issue. There are serious national and cultural stratifications across Europe
that keep people really divided. There's no "us" and hasn't been for a long
time.

Our nominal "us"-ness is now eating itself... "American dream" and "American
novel" are both concepts that would mean very little to millenials, and those
coming up younger.

I think what I find most tragic about what feels like the American mindset
right now is how much it's ignoring how good we still have it, and how much
better things could still be if there was a true interest in the greater good.
We still don't have some of the really unsolvable problems that other
countries contend with. Our perspective is blinding.

------
13years
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.

