I get that sometimes pro-active measures are prudent, but "hey, police, I saw my neighbor's kid walking outside unattended" is not one of those times.
And even if we did agree that these parents were in the wrong, and that the kid shouldn't have been walking alone, the "safety plan" CPS came up with was still a huge unnecessary overreaction. That kind of plan should be reserved for situations when CPS is investigating reports of active abuse.
It's possible that "I saw a kid walking alone" isn't enough to justify an CPS investigation but "This child's parent was just arrested and is being charged with a felony for endangering this child" is reason enough.
At the point CPS got involved, they were investigating the home of someone being charged with felony child endangerment. We don't know what CPS polices demand n that situation, or what alternatives were available to the family, but after hearing what options they had the family agreed to the safety plan. If the alternative was "this or we have to remove you or your children from your home" I'd say it was the right choice.
It's entirely possible that CPS did their job exactly as they should have and were required to do under the circumstances. In fact, if the family had gone to trial it would have helped their case that CPS investigated the home and determined that that the complaint was unfounded.
There's no reason to think that a neighbor with a beef could have called CPS and had this happen to anyone else. There's not even reason to think that a neighbor calling the cops would do it since those cops would have to be as dumb as the one in this story and arrest and charge an innocent person with felony child endangerment for it to work. That should be a pretty high bar to clear. The police screwed this one up, and that's what opened the door to all the other grief.
Look at the hoops you’re willing to jump through to apologize for this behavior… the banality of evil.
“Of course it’s reasonable to report a parent because their child went for a stroll. Then the police would have no choice, but to charge her with a felony; laws the law. Then of course CPS must follow procedure; the kids coulda got kidnapped. Let’s solve this by kidnapping them, strip searching them, and putting them in an abusive home.” (the stuff about strip searching was an amalgamation w/the propublica story. Not a part of your story, but not fake.)
Anything is reasonable as long as you follow policy? You were just following orders?
There was no comment about how it was reasonable to make the phone call, and there's specific criticism of the police conduct... All they said was that at the point CPS got involved, it's entirely possible that CPS did their job exactly as they should have.
I would point out that all we know that CPS did was a) require that the parents not be left alone in the house with the kids while they were conducting their investigation (and even for that, it's not clear from the story that that requirement came from CPS, but it seems likely that's the case) and b) perform an investigation that concluded there was no observable risk to the kids. They weren't involve in the decision to perform the arrest, not involved in setting bail, not involved in any strip search, etc.
I would suspect the first step of any investigation would be to find out why they are investigating and not just set everything in motion based on a vague report from police?
One could imagine that is how the investigation proceeded.
never said that. It's worth noting also that the person who called didn't report the parent. They reported the child who was alone. I don't know why she was concerned about the fact that a kid was walking unaccompanied, but as others have pointed out, we've only got one move when there's concern about some strange child's immediate welfare and we don't want to get involved directly and that's to call the police. It'd be nice we had a better option, like an agency to call who didn't see everyone without a badge as the enemy, but we don't.
> Then the police would have no choice, but to charge her with a felony; laws the law.
Again, I said nothing of the sort. In fact I explicitly stated that the cop was in the wrong.
> Then of course CPS must follow procedure; the kids coulda got kidnapped.
Yes, CPS should follow procedure. That doesn't mean that they should act as mindless drones, but they depend on police to alert them to situations where they need to be involved and once they are involved they should do their job. The concern the CPS should have had wasn't to make sure the kid isn't going to be kidnapped. It's to make sure that the child isn't being neglected or abused.
CPS has a tough job. If they a get a case and blow it off as no big deal and the kid they were supposed to protect gets killed that's an injustice too and sadly it happens (see https://abc7.com/gabriel-fernandez-anthony-avalos-noah-cuatr... or https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/news/cps-cases-workers-fired-aft...).
CPS has a job to do, and there was very little harm done by them in this case. They had a grandparent stay over for a few days. That was it. It might have been worse if the family didn't have nearby relatives who could stay over during the investigation, but again we don't have information on what CPS was obligated to do or what they would have done, we only know what happened and this was not a CPS horror story (which I know do exist!)
In this case, CPS was inappropriately given the case by the police, but there's no indication that they acted inappropriately in their role. In fact, they correctly identified that there was no need for them to be involved.
So in the end some lady messed up and thought a normal situation was an emergency and called the police. It happens and it wouldn't be reasonable for her to think there would be any harm done by that. The police showed up and failed at their job entirely, gave the mother a felony charge and got CPS involved. CPS did their job and are on record that the police made an error. The cop was the real problem here.
I'll also call out another party that failed here and that's the entire rest of the justice system. Every other officer aware of the circumstances who did nothing, and the folks who decided to go ahead with the charge and offer the "deal" that punished the innocent mother are just as bad. If the police officer involved isn't punished for this it also makes the department guilty.
The problems with our justice system go far beyond police. Anyone so clearly innocent should be able to fight in court with confidence that they can be cleared of the bogus charge and without risk of bankrupting themselves in the process. We clearly don't have that today.
It's also worth noting that CPS's investigation would no doubt serve as helpful for the parent's defense against the charges.
That's true, but the thinking you are describing also enables all sorts of abuse.
> the "safety plan" CPS came up with was still a huge unnecessary overreaction
Yeah, at least as described in the article, it seemed excessive and unnecessary. I could see where they don't have a smaller scale mitigation to put in place during an investigation. It's definitely not ideal.
I have had jobs that required me to be a mandatory reporter several times in my life, and none of this was even close to evidence of abuse I'd have to report.
> I have had jobs that required me to be a mandatory reporter several times in my life, and none of this was even close to evidence of abuse I'd have to report.
Mandatory reporting rules are, by design, not intended to include anything and everything that constitutes abuse or neglect.
I have heard that it is shockingly easy to get a judge to issue a search warrant at 2 in the morning on a Saturday. I am not a lawyer, but from what I understand even then there is a minimum bar that needs to be met as far as evidence supporting the petition goes: what is the suspected crime? What evidence is there that supports the suspicion? Why do we believe that a search warrant will produce concrete evidence that the crime occurred and what is the scope of the required search (what property, specifically, are we asking to be able to examine and potentially confiscate?).
Similar, much higher, thresholds need to be met with respects to holding suspects in custody pending a trial.
Under no circumstances should any other government agencies be able to compel anything from anyone "just because." That's what the courts exist for. People have a right to due process and "agree to a safety plan" under threat is an act of force that was not authorized by a court order but by an independent government agency acting alone; outside of the one single entity that we trust to be in charge of doing that both fairly and under extremely tight scrutiny and limitations.
Police are empowered to arrest people on the spot. It seems impractical to add a judge to that process. Once someone has been arrested, you need CPS to step in anyway, at which point it seems silly to bar them from investigating.
> Similar, much higher, thresholds need to be met with respects to holding suspects in custody pending a trial.
I mean, she was released on bail, but she was held in custody. So yes, holding them in jail without bail has a higher standard, but you'd really hope the standard would be higher for that.
> Under no circumstances should any other government agencies be able to compel anything from anyone "just because." That's what the courts exist for.
That seems like a broad and vague statement. In fairness, the parents aren't obligated to do anything, but if they don't, then the courts would get far more involved.
When the report itself doesn't have any abuse in it, no way.