As far as I can tell everyone is lying in this case. The parties in this article both contest the facts in this case. All comments regarding the disputed facts have been deleted, no new posts will be published on this thread.

Is Memphis selling babies to the highest bidder?

The facts of this case as they are presented in this article are in dispute by several family members. I have encouraged both sides of the family to calmly voice their opinions of the case here. Update (9/08/2007): The author of this post and the editors of Kidjacked have been threatened with a lawsuit. Parties in this case are demanding that this article be removed. The names of the parties concerned have been removed.

From beyond the city of Memphis, known—perhaps with a double meaning—as the City of Blues, I wonder what happens behind closed doors that seems to lead repeatedly to old-boy politics and a judicious amount of conspiracy among the people who are supposed to represent the law: its enforcement and its applications.

I watched the drama unfold for many years as a Chinese couple, the Hes, fought to get their biological child back from a Memphis couple who decided they would simply keep the girl, regardless of the birth parents' wishes. The Hes weren't abusive, weren't negligent, weren't in any way deficient as parents. That's a legal fact. What they were was ignorant of the ways of Memphis's dubious legal system. Worse, what they were was Chinese.

That case has finally reached the Tennessee Supreme Court. Maybe—finally, after years of battle—the Hes will receive justice. They'll be reunited with the daughter who was, in the eyes of most anyone but the family who now has her, stolen from them.

If this were an isolated case, I might consider acquiescing to the loud (white) voices that argue the Hes lied about this, or were negligent about that, or didn't understand the ramifications of their decisions about this other thing. I'm a loud white voice, too, from the lefty-liberal stomping grounds of Washington State. You know how we blue states are. We thought Iraq was a mistake when more than 50% of you thought it was a good idea.

Memphis's legal system is also a mistake. If you don't know it already, let me show you where the weapons of mass destruction really are. And then let me ask you a question that is the fundamental question for everyone in Memphis who assumes the law is on their side.

The Hes weren't the first. And they aren't the last. Do you know about DM? She used to live among you, just like the Hes. She used to think Memphis—Germantown, in particular—might be a good place to live. But if your eyes aren't round, maybe you didn't get the memo: Memphis doesn't want you and doesn't like you and will not be kind to you if you are raped or if your children are stolen. Not if your skin is yellow and you don't have the cash to manipulate the system.

Beginning in August of 2004, DM discovered that a white man—her husband, as a matter of fact—could use the Memphis system to his advantage, and the local police would extend to him all the respect, deference, and patience normally allotted to the victim of a crime, not the perpetrator.

Editor's Note: The following accusations are strongly disputed.

• DM's husband abducted the couple's ten-month-old baby. The police, by their own admission uninformed about the laws they're supposed to enforce, did nothing.
• DM's husband raped her. The accusation itself merits an investigation, but when her husband countercharged her with assault (a staged event that her husband plotted out with a divorce attorney he retained even before getting married), DM was the one arrested, based solely on his word. Her time in custody gave her husband ample opportunity to raid their shared residence for valuables and to flee the scene.
• DM's husband used the Germantown police as his own personal attack dogs, calling in false reports of theft (items proven to still be in her husband's possession), child abuse, and a variety of other criminal behaviors that never happened. However, the Germantown police—and his wife (a private investigator, LA), whom her husband hired as well—respond diligently to such reports, provided that the right amount of money is exchanging hands. And it is -- there's a paper trail to prove it.
• DM's husband harmed his own child to manipulate divorce proceedings against DM: he doused his son in gasoline and accused his estranged wife of the act. DCS and hospital staff where the boy ended up for 5 days all concluded that her husband was a threat to the children. Yet nothing was done. The police in Memphis don't arrest their friends, apparently.
• DM's husband attacked and attempted to harm both DM and his son with gasoline. Never mind what he feels for his wife—this is the child he allegedly loves and wants to care for.
• DM's husband violently raped her again less than five months ago. As of today, he remains free...and with custody of the children.

This is only a fraction of the fiasco that has taken place, again, in the legal machinations of Memphis, Tennessee. The Guardian ad Litem in the case is not only failing to keep the children in a steady relationship with their mother (which is her job, by definition), but she was conveniently requested, by the attorney of DM's husband.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of the false police reports that were treated like scripture... police commonsensical failures to gather evidence that anyone who's watched a single episode of CSI would know to do... manipulative private investigators and shady police officers working together despite official commands not to... and a host of other questionable tactics that strongly suggest politicking, racism, and good ol' boy camaraderie between the police and a thug with a history of violence. DM's husband, it seems, has left quite a trail of violence and restraining orders everywhere he goes.

All divorce proceedings are ugly—even the ones that go smoothly still proceed with heartbreak, disillusionment and hopelessness. Your life ends, in a way. But in this case, the Germantown police have allowed themselves, through close personal and financial relationships with DM's husband, to become one of the divorcing spouses.

There's a mountain of paperwork that shows what this triangular divorce has become. Who will look at it? If you can't give it to the police who are sworn to protect you, whom can you give it to? If you are destined to be a victim because your protectors see you as different—racially, socially, economically, politically—then what are you supposed to do to save yourself and your children?

You ask questions. And you ask this question: What are you going to do about this, Memphis? Who polices the police when they choose sides?

M. Ryan
Seattle, WA

Labels: Chinese couple, He Case, Memphis, Tennessee