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Kidjacked | Jacked Up
Comments are strictly moderated. |
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In 2004, 514 Children died while in Foster Care and another 4,261 ran away. National CPS News Archive
Send Kidjacked news and information about what's happening nationally and we'll include it in our coverage. We invite you to check our CPS news section. (Scroll down for National news.) [Additional National Resources]
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National Center for Youth Law Files Lawsuit in Nevada to Improve Child Welfare System
by Annette M. Hall
The National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) filed a class action lawsuit today against Nevada Gov. Kenneth C. Guinn, state Health and Human Services Director Michael Willden, and Clark County officials for failing to protect the health and safety of children in Clark County's child welfare system.
Kidjacked
March 22, 2008
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Just Who's Abusing Whom?
by Annette M. Hall
Today in America, 935 children were forcibly removed from their home and entered the national foster care system.
Kidjacked
March 22, 2008
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A Nation in Crisis
by Nancee Crowell
Nancee Crowell, California and Nevada State Director of 'National Foster Parent Coalition for Allegation Reform' responds to an article written by Craig Schneider regarding Georgia CPS, expressing her outrage at the treatment of parents by Child Protection Agencies
Kidjacked
March 22, 2008
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Daughter failed GED, Dad jailed
by Barry Seward
I can't stop thinking about the man, Brian Gegner, who was jailed because his daughter, Brittany Gegner, skipped school when she was 16.
Now thats she's 18 (almost 19) she failed the math portion of the GED, thereby allowing Butler County Juvenile Court Judge David Niehaus the opportunity to send her dad to jail on May 7th. Huh?? Seriously?
Human Rights and Civil Liberties
May 16, 2008
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School district under fire regarding molestation case
by Laura Tate
School district officials scramble to find answers to parents' questions regarding the arrest of Lincoln Middle School teacher Thomas Arthur Beltran.
As upset parents demand answers regarding a Lincoln Middle School teacher who was arrested for allegedly molesting possibly as many as 10 students-and who was investigated for sexual abuse two years ago-school officials are scrambling to come up with new policies to address such cases.
Malibu Times
May 14, 2008
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Protest Ohio Outrage: Father Jailed Because His Daughter Didn't Get Her GED!
by Glenn Sacks
A few days ago I shared this outrageous story with you-Father Jailed Because His Adult Daughter Fails to Get Her GED. The father Brian Gegner was ordered to see to it that his daughter gets her GED, but she has not done so.
The daughter's problems in school came at a time when she lived with her mother. The daughter herself-now almost 19-years-old-says that she alone is responsible for her own problems and that her father shouldn't be blamed. Nevertheless, the father is in jail on a six month sentence.
Blogger News Network
May 14, 2008
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Father Jailed Because His Adult Daughter Fails to Get Her GED
As anti-male as family courts are, this story is still a little hard to believe. The case is described in the story Man Jailed After Daughter Fails To Get GED (WCPO TV, 5/9/08).
"A Fairfield man is in jail because his daughter hasn't gotten her General Equivalency Diploma (GED)." "A judge ordered the father to stay on top of his daughter's education months ago and when that order wasn't followed, Brian Gegner was sentenced to 180-days in the Butler County jail."
Glenn Sacks
May 11, 2008
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WTF?!: Hard lemonade, hard price
by Michael Vail
And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.
The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.
Thought Criminal
May 05, 2008
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Bill on CPS disclosures nearly through AZ Legislature
PHOENIX - A bill to require more disclosures by state Child Protective Services is nearing the finish line at the Arizona Legislature.
The Senate's 27-0 vote on Wednesday positions the bill for a final House vote early next week on changes made by the Senate. House passage would send it to Gov. Janet Napolitano. The bill would require new disclosures of CPS records and information in cases involving fatalities or near-fatalities of children.
KSWT Channel 13 News (AZ)
May 14, 2008
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Make-A-Wish child in CPS custody (video)
by Kristi Hsu
When Elizabeth Garcia met Barney the purple dinosaur during her Make-A-Wish Foundation trip in January, the little girl, then 7, was all smiles and hugs.
Her disposition was markedly different Tuesday, when she saw her parents for the second time since she was taken into Child Protective Services custody in late April. "She didn't look happy at all," her mother, Debbie Garcia, said. "She looked so sad and pale."
Abilene Reporter-News
May 14, 2008
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Judge bars CPS from removing child from polygamous mother
SAN ANTONIO - A Texas judge has ruled that a mother from a polygamous sect may retain custody of her baby -- at least temporarily -- even after the boy turns a year old tomorrow.
Close to 500 juveniles under 17 were removed from the ranch by the state, which argues they were endangered by underage and polygamous spiritual marriages.
KSWT Channel 13 News
May 14, 2008
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Texas polygamist sect teen who gave birth is adult
by Terri Langford and Lisa Sandberg
Texas Child Protective Services conceded Tuesday that a pregnant teen taken from a polygamists' ranch in West Texas was an adult when she gave birth in San Marcos last month
...casting some doubt on the statistics released by the agency that more than 20 underage girls were pregnant or had given birth. The teenager, 18-year-old Pamela Jeffs, gave birth to a boy on April 29. CPS officials said she was one of 27 girls in a "disputed" minor category who once told CPS they were adults but later indicated they were under 18.
Houston Chronicle
May 14, 2008
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The scandal of 'criminalising' mental health patients | Joe Public | Guardian Unlimited
by Mary O'Hara
The human rights group Black Mental Health UK (BMHUK) will this week aim to ratchet up pressure for a government rethink on the national DNA database, although not (as has much of the critique to date) based on general civil liberties arguments.
BMHUK is taking on the government specifically on the contention that the policy is "criminalising" people with mental health problems. And what's worse, it will argue, it is going largely unnoticed and undebated.
Guardian Unlimited (UK)
May 12, 2008
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State settles with disabled mother
by Matt Gouras
The state said Friday that it has settled accusations that child protective services workers unfairly discriminated against a disabled Livingston woman. The settlement will cost the state $330,000.
Geri Glass, bound to a wheelchair following a car accident, said the workers put onerous and unfair conditions on her. Glass said that when her son Gage was a newborn, state Child and Family Services workers told her they would take her son if they learned she had been left alone with him.
Helena Independent Record
May 10, 2008
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State foster care could get boost
by Tim Martin
LANSING -- Michigan's strained foster care system might get some support from the private sector under a plan soon to be introduced in the state Legislature.
The state has 6,611 licensed foster homes, and agencies are looking to recruit more foster parents. But there are other ways for the public to help the system, lawmakers said. The state typically has had between 18,000 and 19,000 children in the foster care system at any one time in the past decade.
Detroit Free Press (MI)
May 08, 2008
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Part I: How rushed justice fails our kids
by Karen de Sa'
A yearlong Mercury News examination found widespread evidence of a system riddled with problems that open the door to poor judgment:
Judges and lawyers representing children and parents juggle caseloads in some counties that at any given time are far higher than even the maximum recommended standards. On a recent weekday, a San Joaquin County judge ruled on 135 families in a single day. Dependency lawyers in San Bernardino County represent 464 children each - almost five times what many experts recommend.
The Mercury News (CA)
February 11, 2008
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Texas officials drafting plans for FLDS children
by Ben Winslow
Texas child welfare authorities have begun drafting service plans for the children taken from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch.
"It's the plan that has to address the permanency," said Mary Walker, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. "Whether or not children will be unified with their parents or whether or not they will remain in foster care."
Deseret News
May 08, 2008
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CPS files still closed as more queries raised
Need another reason why the Arizona Legislature needs to pry open a few of those lead-lined windows that allow Child Protective Services to protect itself from the prying eyes of outsiders? Two words: Dave Wigton.
For nearly 30 years, Wigton has worked at the agency whose only job is to protect children. Then last week, he was accused of turning a little girl into his own personal sex toy and, as a bonus, sharing kiddie porn with a teenage boy.
The Arizona Republic
May 07, 2008
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Expose DHS-CPD, Part III
by Jenifer Saroian
My ever increasing email has come to include the names of women who have actually died (Pamela Gaston) in the effort to effect a change in the broken, abusive practices of DHS-CPD.
I am humbled by the experience and efforts made by those who have gone before me; those who have given years of broken hearted effort for their children and their sisters. The strong, battle weary, women who are still without justice, in spite of their strength and courage.
Salem-News
May 03, 2008
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DHS-CSD Expose Part II
by Jenifer Saroian
I DO NOT support the presumption that DHS is all bad, or has no place in our society. If you are a child abuser, you deserve to have your children removed from your custody.
If you are a parent that needs education to improve your parenting skills, I want you to get that education. If you are so ill that you can not adequately parent, I want you to get the help you need and deserve (which does not include punishment by DHS, but help).
Salem-News
May 03, 2008
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Expose - DHS Children's Protective Services Division
by Jenifer Saroian
DHS often requests that clients bring in, or sign releases for their clients' medical records. If the existing medical records do not support the allegations made by DHS, they routinely bring in their own psychiatrists.
ese psychiatrists are paid an average of $2,000.00 by DHS (aka Oregon tax payers) for each psychiatric evaluation (psych eval). These evaluations do not include reviewing any of the existing medical documentation that the client has already paid for.
Salem-News
May 03, 2008
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Expose: DHS-CPD, Part IV
by Jenifer Saroian
In my last three guest pieces, I touched on several ways in which DHS-CPD, and their affiliates, have violated State and Federal laws.
Violations include failure to adequately investigate allegations that initially bring a family to the attention of DHS...
Salem-News
May 03, 2008
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DFCS role obscured in sensationalist reports
by Mary Dean Harvey
The role of the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) can be boiled down to a simple formula: Someone expresses concern about a child and DFCS investigates.
Child welfare work requires good judgment in these kinds of situations, and such decisions are often made on a case-by-case basis. And it is not unusual for judges and attorneys who represent the children in a case to agree with our placements, once made.
The Citizen
April 17, 2008
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Indian Babies Dropped 50 Feet for Good Luck in Bizarre Ritual - International News
Indian Babies Dropped 50 Feet for Good Luck in Bizarre Ritual, A jaw-dropping ritual in India has infants plunging 50 feet from a tower to wish them good health.
In a video shot on April 29, "good luck babies" are thrown from the top of a building and onto a sheet during the celebration, which has been celebrated in the Indian state of Maharashtra for 500 years, the U.K.'s Sky News reported Thursday.
Fox News
May 01, 2008
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Polygamist Sect Newborn Ordered Into State Custody
SAN ANTONIO -- A judge ordered that the baby boy born to a teenager taken from a polygamist sect's ranch in West Texas be placed in state custody, according to documents released Thursday.
Texas District Judge Barbara Walther signed the order Wednesday giving the state custody of the 1-day-old infant born to a teen believed to be 15 or 16 years old.
Fox News
May 02, 2008
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CPS Supervisor Accused Of Child Molestation
PHOENIX -- A Child Protective Services supervisor is accused of sexually molesting a 4-year-old girl and two teenage boys, Phoenix police said.
David Wigton, 58, was arrested Wednesday afternoon and booked into the Maricopa County jail. Wigton faces one count of molestation of a child, two counts of sexual conduct with a minor, two counts of furnishing obscene materials to a minor and two counts of obstructing a criminal investigation.
KPHO Phoenix
May 02, 2008
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National DNA database gets kickstart from feds
by Bob Unruh
With virtually no fanfare, and equally quiet opposition, President Bush has signed into law a plan that orders the government to take no more than six months to set up a national contingency plan to screen newborns' DNA.
Further, the new law requires that the results of that DNA program, including "information ... research, and data on newborn screening" shall be assembled by a "central clearinghouse" and be made available on the Internet.
World Net Daily
May 01, 2008
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Judges council settles in fraud deal
by Martha Bellisle
A Reno-based nonprofit organization that trains juvenile and family court judges has agreed to pay $300,000 to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle claims that it committed fraud to secure grant money used to hire "ghost" workers.
Serena Hulbert, a special projects manager at the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges fired as a "troublemaker" after questioning the group's billing practices, filed a separate suit last week saying she was wrongfully terminated for questioning the bogus grant transactions.
Reno Gazette-Journal
May 01, 2008
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Do county payments to judges amount to bribes?
by Charlene Muhammad
Two activists want Attorney General Michael Mukasey to launch a Justice Department investigation into what they call courtroom corruption fueled by "unwarranted" payments from Los Angeles County to Los Angeles Superior Court judges.
Two activists want Attorney General Michael Mukasey to launch a Justice Department investigation into what they call courtroom corruption fueled by "unwarranted" payments from Los Angeles County to Los Angeles Superior Court judges.
Final Call News
April 22, 2008
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Study Shows Majority of Americans Doubt Quality of Public School Education
by Jeremy Reynalds
Results from a recently released study show the vast majority of Americans have significant doubts about the quality of a public school education, and believe other options generally are better for children.
According to a news release from Ellison Research, the study asked Americans to rate the overall quality of education students get from public schools, home schooling, charter schools, and three types of private schools: non-religious, Catholic, and Christian (non-Catholic), and then to decide which option is the best for students in a number of different ways.
ASSIST News Service
April 26, 2008
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Former FLDS member is sharing her insights on the sect
by Brian West
A former member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church herself, Mackert is making the rounds to talk about her past life as a polygamous wife.
Born and raised in Hildale, Utah, Mackert said she became the sixth of seven wives to a 50-year-old man when she was 17. "He was older than my father," she said.
Deseret News
April 28, 2008
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Class-action child removal
by Vox Day
The Texas kidnapping authorities are so poorly informed that they aren't even certain precisely how many children they stole from their parents. What they first reported as 416 children seized by the state rose to first to 437, and now to 462.
So, while they can't even manage a simple head count, they nevertheless expect Americans to simply trust their assertion that every single parent of those 462 children constituted a "continuing and immediate danger to their safety" despite the fact that the children are far healthier than the norm, not a single parent has actually been arrested and charged with any form of child abuse and the CPS has publicly conceded that there is no evidence that any of the 130 or more children under five have been abused!
World Net Daily
April 28, 2008
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What Did The FLDS Kids Do To Deserve This?
by Ben Stein
Ben Stein Says Texas Authorities Are Acting Like The Gestapo By Taking Away The Children Of A Mormon Sect
What the heck is going on in Texas with the kids caught up in the polygamy ranch disaster? Look, I am not a fan of polygamy. For one thing, it's all any man can do keeping up with one wife. For another, it's against the law in this country. But the polygamists that have been in the news have been operating for decades. The authorities knew about it, and them. They didn't do a thing about it for all those years!
CBSNews
April 28, 2008
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Sweep of Polygamist Sect Kids Raises Legal Questions
The state of Texas made a damning accusation when it rounded up 462 children at a polygamous sect's ranch: The adults are forcing teenage girls into marriage and sex, creating a culture so poisonous that none should be allowed to keep their children.
But the broad sweep - from nursing infants to teenagers - is raising constitutional questions, even in a state where authorities have wide latitude for taking a family's children. The move has the appearance of "a class-action child removal," said Jessica Dixon, director of the child advocacy center at Southern Methodist University's law school in Dallas.
Fox News
April 25, 2008
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FLDS Raid - A Dangerous Legal Precedent
by Joel Skousen
I waited a week to comment on the Texas case, separating 437 children from their FLDS parents, to see if any substantive evidence of abuse would emerge. It hasn't.
Even if it had, those could have been handled individually. But no, Texas plans instead to make every member of the group pay the supreme price: to strip away their beloved children. This case is about group punishment. In spite of a search warrant tainted by a false witness (the "Sarah" who doesn't exist), no actual specific evidence of abuse, or any unwilling participants in this polygamous compound, a self-righteous Texas judge had decreed that all 400 + children will not be returned to the custody of their parents.
Rense
April 26, 2008
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Wanting Contact: Advocacy group announces correspondence bill
by Kate Weber
Carrie Adams lived three streetlights away from her two children and did not see them for two years.
Adams, originally from Palos Heights, a Chicago suburb, was one of several people gathered Sunday at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore to stand up for parents' rights. The people came from as far away as Sheboygan, Wis., as members of Project Prevent, an organization striving to join hundreds of advocacy groups across the country to fight for the same issue: families.
Daily Chronicle
April 21, 2008
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Caretakers get hints on caring for children seized in Texas
From Amarillo to Houston, children from the polygamist ranch in Texas are settling into new surroundings, and caretakers are getting cultural pointers on how to deal with them - such as no television, no movies, no radio and nothing red.
"The color 'RED' is not acceptable for clothing," said a memo that the Texas Department of Child Protective Services sent to caretakers for the 462 children seized this month from the Yearning for Zion ranch after a tip about possible abuse.
The Associated Press
April 27, 2008
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'Failure to Protect' - From the Diocese of Fairbanks
by Richard Wexter
There was a story on NPR yesterday about rampant sexual abuse in isolated compounds, perpetrated by religious leaders.
Although there were relatively few offenders, the number of victims is staggering. The "compounds" are Native Alaskan villages. The abusers were priests and lay volunteers supervised by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks in the 1960s.
NCCPR Child Welfare Blog
April 22, 2008
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Eldorado Yearning For Zion women experience the most feared words ever spoken: 'Your children are ours,' CPS
by Gary Naler
"The death penalty of family law cases." This is how the events unfolding for 416 children and their now-separated mothers were described as the State of Texas and Child Protective Services (CPS) mount their largest single attack ever.
After being forcibly removed from their homes at gunpoint and then through deceit and lies separated from their children, these crying and now-untrusting mothers deprived of any parting contact with their children were given the choice-go to a women's shelter or go back to your homes. "Your children are ours," said CPS.
News Release Wire
April 17, 2008
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'Sarah' may be Colorado woman
The telephoned pleas for help that triggered a raid on an alleged polygamist ranch in Texas have been linked to a woman with a history of false accusations.
Rozita Swinton, 33, of Colorado Springs has been named a "person of interest" by authorities in Texas, the Deseret Morning News reported. Documents unsealed Wednesday said that calls purportedly from a teenager named "Sarah" had been made on a prepaid cell phone Swinton had used previously.
United Press International
April 24, 2008
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Sect challenges legality of search warrant, raid
Authorities knew that reports of alleged abuse at a polygamist sect's Texas ranch were questionable before they raided the compound, attorneys for the ranch's families said in court documents Thursday.
The attorneys are arguing that search warrants were wrongly issued in the case. A state official responded that the initial reports don't matter at this point, because "we found children being abused." It also asks the judge to issue an order restricting the publication of documents and records seized from the ranch.
CNN
April 24, 2008
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Bloggers' challenge: "Yearning for Zion"
The Herald Journal is inviting reader input on the following topic: Have Texas authorities acted properly in the "Yearning for Zion" Ranch case?
If we get enough comments with enough variety, a sampling of those comments will appear this coming Sunday in a "Bloggers Soapbox" column on the newspaper's Opinion page.
The Herald Journal
April 23, 2008
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Who will save women of Zion sect?
by Antonia Zerbisia
Bad enough that the women of the Yearning for Zion "ranch" in Eldorado, Texas, had been turned into zombie baby incubators, or at least that's how they come across on TV.
Now they're being victimized yet again as the legal system works to permanently separate them from their youngest children, including nursing newborns.
The Toronto Star
April 23, 2008
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They're coming for your kids!
by Ilana Mercer
Imagine: One day you're frolicking in the open air on a large compound, doing your daily chores and feasting on hearty homegrown fare; the next you're gagging on a diet of T&A courtesy of MTV and fast-food compliments of your fat foster mom.
As the makeshift mom hollers at you to swallow your zombifying meds - the Texas foster care system is notorious for pumping its charges full of psychotropic drugs - her flaccid live-in lover eyes you lustily. As I write, many of the kids kidnapped by Texas rangers from the Yearning for Zion ranch are being scattered across the state to far-flung group homes and shelters.
World Net Daily
April 24, 2008
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Bill would lend financial help to relatives who care for children
by James R. Hermann, Sr.
Nearly 15,000 children across the country now living in foster care could leave foster care and live permanently with relatives if federal support was available to help with their care, as is now available for many foster parents who adopt children.
It is time for reform. Now. A bi-partisan bill (S661/HR1288, commonly known as the "Kinship Caregiver Support Act") is being prepared that would give guardianship of children by relatives the support they need, allowing these kids to leave the foster care system for good.
Bonner County Daily Bee
April 20, 2008
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Canadian children in polygamy battle
by Michelle Roberts
The attorney general for British Columbia said yesterday he was alerted by officials in Ottawa that some children taken from a Texas polygamist compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are Canadians.
The confirmation came hours after Angie Voss, of Texas Child Protection Services, testified at a custody hearing for 416 children - seized in a raid earlier this month based in allegations of physical and sexual abuse - that some of the children before the court are Canadians.
The Toronto Star
April 19, 2008
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Moms, children from Texas sect to be parted
SAN ANGELO, Texas - Adult mothers who have been allowed to stay with their young children since they were taken from a polygamous sect will be separated from them after DNA sampling is completed next week, a child-welfare official said Saturday.
State District Judge Barbara Walther late Friday ordered that parents and children of the Yearning For Zion Ranch submit DNA samples to help sort out family relationships that have confounded authorities since 416 children were taken into state custody two weeks ago.
Northwest Herald
April 20, 2008
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The Medicated Child
by Frontline
Ten years ago, stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall were the drugs of choice to treat behavioral issues in children. Today children as young as four years old are being prescribed more powerful anti-psychotic.
There has been a dramatic increase in the number of children being diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders and prescribed medications that are just beginning to be tested in children. The drugs can cause serious side effects, and virtually nothing is known about their long-term impact. "It's really to some extent an experiment, trying medications in these children of this age."
PBS
April 09, 2008
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Eli Lilly Zyprexa RICO Lawsuit
by Daniel Haszard
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sues Eli Lilly and Company, Inc. for illegally marketing its antipsychotic drug Zyprex |
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