Posted on 10/21/2005 12:50:33 PM PDT by SmithL
Members of the family of La-shuan Ternice Harris said they had argued that the 23-year-old woman was unstable and unfit to care for her boys -- 6-year-old Trayshaun Harris, 2-year-old Taronta Greely Jr. and 16-month-old Joshua Greely.
They had given up trying by Wednesday, when Harris went to the home of a cousin and told her she was going to feed her children to the sharks.
The cousin tried frantically to prevent Harris from leaving for San Francisco with her boys, but she failed, relatives said. At 5:30 p.m., police said, Harris took the children to the end of Pier 7 along the Embarcadero, stripped them naked and threw them in the water.
Taronta's body washed up more than four hours later at Fort Mason. The bodies of the other two children have not been found, and the Coast Guard suspended its search late Thursday, about the time Harris was formally charged with three counts of murder and three counts of child assault.
Her aunt, Joyce Harris of Oakland, said Thursday that Lashuan Harris' mother had contacted Alameda County social services officials about three months ago to seek partial custody of the children because Harris had stopped taking medication for schizophrenia and had made threats regarding the boys.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I wasn't setting out to offend you. My apologies.
They often do, but they are rarely questioned afterwards.
Why would making a fool of yourself offend me?
(giggle giggle snort giggle)
Have a good night, Hildy.
I'll see you around.
Thank you!
For years I've heard people say, "I don't want to interfere" .. WHY NOT! It's your family - better to interfere and have somebody get upset then to sit silent and 3 little innocent children drown. That's sick!
My children have learned - just because they're adults I will not be sitting silent if I think they're acting like jerks. I tell them. They don't like it! So what! Funny thing is .. after I tell them off and tell them the truth .. the situation changes - and things improve. So I had to put up with a momentary angry retort to what I said - too stinking bad!
Everytime one of my son's says, you don't have the right to tell me what to do .. I have one statement = 27 HOURS OF LABOR - that entitles me to yell at you forever!!!
Relatives sought help before kids were drowned
----Not hard enough
----CyberAnt, My hat goes off to you. You did what ANY loving family member SHOULD do to save children. Her family should have done the same if they knew of her unstability.
Hope all is well with your grandbaby now.
Lauranne
Jake, I hope you understood what I was trying to say. I didn't mean to be as curt as it came off. Have a good night too. ;)
Thanks for your nice comments. My precious little girl is 13 already. She's a real treasure.
She was fortunate, her Aunt and Uncle who are still her guardians were trained to be foster parents. They knew exactly how to deal with her and how to help her. It was a double blessing.
Ding, ding, ding, ding!!!
Give the poster a ceegar!!!
The family is both the first unit of government and the first level of defense.
She told them that she was going to kill her children, and they failed to protect them...now, they're trying to lay the blame on "the man" for not doing something they were supposed to do.
Too early for cigars, but I appreciate the cup of coffee that turned up!
Ah yes, one of the "it's all for the children" types. This excuse has been used to justify all manner of restrictions on liberty and other governmental excesses for centuries.
When the error takes months to rectify and in the meantime your kids are living in a foster home possibly suffering abuse at the hands of foster parents and certain anguish at being forcibly removed from their home, that's OK ?
Think about it. No, it's tragic that any child dies at the hands of their parent(s), and I wish there was a way to prevent all deaths of that type. But if the cost is the knee-jerk breakup of families whose only crime is association, however brief, with a vindictive or non-comprehending complaintant, then I reject that cost.
The remedy is to empower families to help their own. Find ways for the cousin, grandparent, sibling, or whatever, to take over when the parent is incapable. If families aren't told that Child Services and the all-benevolent state will do it, they would do it for themselves. Who cares more about a child - the stranger from the government or the child's extended family ?
No psychiatric diagnosis is objective when you have a checklist of behaviors that cannot be medically tested and that rely on an observer(s) to report on a "never, often, sometimes" level. Tell me - what's your definition of "often" ? Once a day, 5x a day, 10x a week, what ? When reporting, do you quantify the answer or just give the undefined term "often" ?
Diabetis is an objective diagnosis because there's a blood test that shows the insulin level of your body. Is there a comparable test for any psychiatric problem ?
The answer is no. Might there be some day ? Possibly, but that day is not now.
Personal responsibility ? Yes, of course, but please do not suggest that any psychiatric diagnosis is objective, and don't compare it to a real illness like diabetes. That's just flat-out wrong. Psychiatrists/psychologists like to make such comparisons because it makes their pronouncements seem more legitimate than they are.
Let me guess, you'd like to turn back to the good ole days of snake pits and asylums being entertainment for the gentry. Of the insane being damned by all, by them being locked away and chained.
Remember, not so long ago, epilepsy was thought to be demonic possession. Now we know better. And in time, there will better diagnostic tests for MI. Right now, yes, observation is all that there is...but clear patterns, behaviors lead to some pretty consistant Dx. And researchers are pioneering in brain imaging, lab tests etc.
So, one day, people like you will be relegated to the halls cruelty and ignorance. Even now, remarks like "not being a real illness" just make me laugh. Its like a someone screaming "China doesn't exist because I've never been there" to someone from Bejing.
Dang, I have nothing more to say....gotta continue to live in my unreal world with my unreal self while worrying about unreal relatives and trying to care for unreal patients.
From what I have seen the fault for this can be often be localized even more to the people who are in managerial positions in these organizations.
You make a big leap in your reply. Sounds like you perhaps work in the field and accept the dogma. I merely have the skepticism and questioning ability of an observer. Instead of making assumptions, stick to what is known and knowable. You don't know me, therefore you cannot make any statement concerning my thoughts on "turning back to the good old days of snake pits " and that other bull you spouted.
I didn't say there were no problems with behavior in people - I merely took exception with your claim of objective testing for psychiatric diagnoses. Truth is a good thing, and words have meaning. Let's be precise in our definitions and not toss around meaningless claptrap.
As I said, there may be tests in the future, but they do not now exist, so please do not pretend they do. For a time PET scans were thought to be the diagnosis tool for ADHD, for example - until it was pointed out that the brains being measured were not drug-naive, and in any case there was still no method of measurement of what was "normal" and what was not.
Until humanity can come to a consensis on the definition of "normal", there is no test possible that will diagnosis "normal". We have agreed what is normal in terms of insulin levels, so we know how to diagnosis diabetes. Until brain researchers determine what is normal in terms of levels of brain chemicals, activity in certain regions, etc, there can be no diagnosis that is other than purely subjective.
As the old joke goes, "Everyone's crazy but thee and me, and sometimes I wonder about thee."
Amazing isn't it?
I found this (or 'it found me') when we were in a similar bind (now raising three grandkids). Isaiah 51:
7 Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
8 For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
10 Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
11 Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
--------------------------------------------------------- Excerpted from The Complete Multimedia Bible based on the King James Version Copyright (c) 1994 Compton's NewMedia, Inc.
Yes, it was amazing. God kept telling me, "I'm going to do it". And .. He kept doing it. We had the DA's office help us - and I found out later they are legally not allowed to do this - but they did. And .. they waived the fee $350.
What amazed me was that Riverside County is not known for its good adjudication of children's issues. But, they did above and beyond in regard to my grandchild. Judges, advocates, they all performed above and beyond.
I've written a long chapter in my book about how we gained custody of Sam. The other "key" is having a relationship with the child from the beginning. Even though my son abdicated his responsibility to her, I did not. She went through a lot of horrible stuff, but she's turned out to be a real treasure.
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