Free Republic

This ruling only concerns the first case involving the Meitivs. While they had pursued the appeal on the January ruling, police took their children into custody again last month for walking to the park on their own, holding them for more than five hours. The action raised eyebrows even among those who disapprove of the Meitiv’s parenting style, with many demanding to know how the police and CPS could argue that their actions were less harmful than allowing two children to walk alone to a nearby park. They still have not issued a conclusion on that incident, but it’s practically...

Police in Texas have launched an investigation after online video surfaced showing a Hunt County Sheriff’s officer strike an Air Force veteran who was nine months pregnant last month. Footage shows two deputies restrain Deanna Robinson during the March 4th incident as they accompanied Child Protective Services to her parents’ home to remove the 38-year-old’s 18-month-old son Landry over allegations of of abuse. Robinson can be heard shouting that she is pregnant before a deputy is seen at the end of the video hitting her. -snip Robinson told WFAA that the accusations of child abuse stem from a March 1st...

Doc: Your child can’t walk? Mom: That’s right, he can’t walk. He was hit by a truck a couple of days ago. Could that be the cause? Doc: Hmm, correlation does not mean causation so don’t jump to conclusions. Mom: He was absolutely normal in every way before he got hit by the truck. He was walking, talking, learning new words everyday. He was such a happy delightful baby. Now he can’t walk. Doc: Sometimes babies do that. Truck warningMom: You don’t think getting hit by the truck was the cause? I did some research and I found out that...

Williamsburg, Va. – Kimberlyn Williams feels unsafe in her own home because of her 12-year-old son. “I am his mother and I do love him, but he`s dangerous,” Williams says. She says he’s so dangerous that she is prepared to face jail time to keep him out of the house, to not only protect herself, but her two younger children. “I have been hit, bit, kicked,” she says. “He has threatened to stab children at school, to kill them. He has these outbursts.” She says her son is now at Riverside Behavioral Health Center in Hampton. He was put there...

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Seven homeschoolers in Arkansas who were seized by the Garland County Sheriff’s Department this month remain in state custody after a court hearing on Thursday over the matter. Hal Stanley, a pastor, and his wife Michelle state that they are in shock after their children were removed from their Hot Springs home on Jan. 12 following an anonymous complaint. The situation began last month as a social worker with the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) showed up at the Stanley’s door after receiving a complaint that the children were permitted to go outside in the...

A Montgomery County couple says they’re being investigated for neglect for allowing their two children to walk home from a park by themselves. Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say the county’s Child Protective Services began investigating them after police stopped their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter about half-way through a mile-walk home on Dec. 20 in Silver Spring. Police say they stopped the children and drove them home after someone reported seeing them. …

It was a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. But what the parents saw as a moment of independence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, they say authorities viewed much differently. Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say they are being investigated for neglect for the Dec. 20 trek — in a case they say reflects a clash of ideas about how safe the world is and whether parents are free to make their own choices about raising their children. “We wouldn’t have let them do it if we didn’t think they...

A Sioux Falls couple is preparing for a Christmas without their three children---who are now in the state's custody. Parents Molly and Mike say their children were taken from their home after taking their 2 month old son to the E-R for an unknown injury. They say similar stories can be found all over the U.S. "He wouldn't eat when he was crying we would see the cut on his tongue, so I called his doctor and he said we should take him to the ER. So we went to the ER," mother Molly Bowling said. The couple says they...

I received an update from the Maryland mom of two who was contacted by Montgomery Country Child Welfare Service in November after she let her kids, ages 6 and 10, play at the park two blocks from home by themselves. She was cited for allowing a child under age 8 "to be locked or confined in a dwelling, building, enclosure, or motor vehicle while the person charged is absent." The CPS worker decided "confined in a dwelling" was the same thing as "outside in a park."The higher ups at child services agreed that this was insane, and the case was closed—until this...

The protesters stopped traffic on the freeway. (Revolution News) Fourteen protesters were arrested including two children, ages 6 and 10. The children were taken to child protective services. WISN reported: Protesters from Ferguson, Missouri, took over the streets of downtown Milwaukee Saturday. The gathering caused disruption for some people trying to get around just weeks before Christmas as protesters marched through the streets. At one point, the demonstration forced a part of the freeway to be shut down. Police arrested 14 people shortly before 1 p.m. as a result of the protest that took place near Interstate 94 and Second...

SIP Development Process   In January 2013, the System Improvement Planning process was initiated.   Internal meetings were conducted with all levels of staff to review the Peer Review (PR) and County Self Assessment (CSA).   Information and outcomes for inclusion in the SIP were identified. Lead responsibilities were assigned.    In addition, smaller groups of external stakeholders were consulted regarding specific strategies and actions in which they had indicated an interest and/or where there was a need for buy in and partnership.    This occurred at the numerous meetings that were already scheduled with stakeholders and issues pertinent to the plan were...

But what I want to talk about are children who don’t feel safe outside — not because of stranger-danger or threat of immediate injury, but because the police will be called if they’re just playing like we played when we were young. What will members of the Always On Screens Generation be like when they’re adults?

Chicago's newest selective enrollment high school will not be named after President Barack Obama, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel had announced with much fanfare when unveiling the high profile school project. In a statement this morning, Emanuel said he would look for other possible names. “Over the last few months, my team has listened to questions and concerns from the community, ranging from location of the building to the naming of the school. We take that community input seriously, which is why – as we continue to look for a thoughtful way to honor President Obama – we will look for...

Many people who have followed the Justina Pelletier case—largely ignored by the mainstream media, by the way—have thought that there has to be more to it, or that it’s an outrageous out-of-the-ordinary affair. This is the case where the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families forcibly took custody from her parents over a year ago of a teenager who had been treated for years for mitochondrial disease (a genetic disorder), when they brought her to Boston Children’s Hospital for consultation about a related gastrointestinal problem and resisted a quickly-made diagnosis by a medical resident and a psychologist there that she...

LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) - It’s a secret list that can cost you your family or your job. Once you’re on it, it can be very hard to get off. While some changes are being made to the law, many experts say it doesn’t go far enough. The state maintains something called the Michigan Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry and the sole power to label you an abuser lies not with a judge or a jury, but with child protective services workers. And you may be surprised at how the state can define “abuse.” Anita Belle says she’s never been...

Teaching a child racial epithets isn’t a crime, but it can lead to your children being taken from you. A police union in Nebraska has posted a video of a toddler using the “N-word” and a “slew of profanities” while arguing with adults over a toppled chair, reports CNN, who, unlike police, has blurred the face of the child. The kid even knows how to “shoot a bird.” The toddler and three other children were taken from the home Wednesday by Omaha police and Nebraska Child Protective Services. The police union, who says it got the video from a “local...

Parents hate to see their kids treated like robots while forced to fit into the government’s definition of equal and successful. Surprise! Surprise! Parents want their kids to develop as individuals each prepared to follow his own dreams. In a video (seen below) on Common Core, New York State PTA Education Coordinator Bob Aloise supported calling Child Protective Services and charging parents with “educational neglect” for opting-out their kids from the curricula or testing. Despite outrageous threats and insults, parents across the U.S. are expressing disgust with the one-size-fits all, turn-my-child-into-a-robot form of standards imposed by Common Core. Courageous parents...

A 15-year-old is stuck in a Boston hospital after the medical facility took custody of her when her parents argued against her diagnosis. For the last nine months, Justina Pelletier has been sneaking messages to her parents in Connecticut through folded origami notes. “It is kidnapping,” Lou Pelletier, the girl’s father, told WTIC-TV. The local news station investigated the case, for which a judge later issued a gag order, and has the background leading up to the ongoing custody battle:

KIEL (WISCONSIN) : Todd and Melissa Puchalla struggled more than two years to raise Quita, the troubled teenager they'd adopted from Liberia. When they decided to give up the 16-year-old, they found new parents to take her in less than two days - by posting an ad on the internet. Nicole and Calvin Eason, an Illinois couple in their 30s, responded quickly. In emails, Nicole Eason assured Melissa Puchalla that she could handle the girl. "People that are around me think I am awesome with kids," Eason wrote. A few weeks later, on Oct. 4, 2008, the Puchallas drove from...

Activists from several Chicago community groups on Thursday called for a one-day boycott of Chicago Public Schools because of what they say are discriminatory practices against poor African-American and Latino students. The group is asking students to skip school Wednesday and parents and supporters to forgo a Chicago Board of Education meeting to attend a rally in front of the board's downtown office, followed by a march to City Hall. **SNIP** The activists said the school district's decision to close 49 elementary schools and a high school program has destabilized minority communities and put student lives in danger. Many mentioned...