Despite Reforms, Child Deaths Still Uncounted In Florida

By Carol Marbin Miller
cmarbin@Miami Herald.com

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article3016499.html#storylink=cpy

In Lake County, a disfigured 2-month-old whose mother did not want him is left alone in a motel room for 90 minutes, and is later found smothered. His family had been the subject of 38 prior investigations by the state’s child welfare agency.
“It is a general consensus,” a report said, “that [the mother] was involved in the death of her child.”
In Santa Rosa County, child welfare authorities allow a “chronic and severe” drug addict to bring her newborn home, though her two older children had been removed from her care for their safety. Eighteen days later, the mother takes an unprescribed Lortab painkiller and places her baby next to her in bed. The child is found dead.
And in Polk County, a mother leaves two toddlers alone in a “kiddie pool” — and returns to find her 1-year-old daughter face-down in the water. Her 2-year-old son later discloses he pushed his sister down while she was crying. He now suffers nightmares.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article3016499.html#storylink=cpy

The children, who all perished last year, are tragically bound by more than death: Even as the Florida Department of Children & Families has promised greater openness, the three fatalities, and dozens of others like them, have never been counted among the state’s victims of fatal abuse or neglect.
No state can protect every child who is born to troubled, violent or drug-addicted parents, and even youngsters for whom child protection administrators make all the right choices can sometimes fall victim to unforeseen circumstances. To ensure that state social service agencies learn from mistakes, the federal government requires that states count and investigate all child fatalities that result from abuse or neglect.
Regulators don’t, however, strenuously oversee how the counting and investigating occurs.

After the Miami Herald published a series examining the deaths of 477 children — and Florida’s failure to protect some of them from abusive or neglectful parents — the state promised a new era of openness and more rigor in the way it investigates child deaths.

But except for abiding by a new state law that required DCF to create a website listing all child fatalities, Florida has continued to undercount the number of children it fails.
“Nothing has changed,” said former Broward Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. James Harn, who supervised child abuse investigations before retiring when a new sheriff was elected last year. “Some day, somebody will say ‘let’s just stop the political wrangling.’ Here’s what you’ve got to do: Just tell the truth.”

For several years, BSO, which has investigated child deaths under contract with DCF, has recorded significantly more fatalities due to neglect or abuse than other counties, where DCF does its own investigations. One important reason for the disparity is that the sheriff’s office long has insisted that drownings and accidental suffocations — among the leading causes of child fatality — be counted, while DCF has, in recent years, declined to include the majority of those in its abuse and neglect tally.
As a result, said Harn, the statewide numbers “are cooked.”
“It’s not going to get fixed as long as they want to hide things,” Harn added.
A DCF spokeswoman in Tallahassee, Alexis Lambert, said the agency studies all child fatalities — not just the ones it verifies as resulting from abuse or neglect — to “improve and strengthen child welfare practice and services provided to vulnerable children and at-risk families statewide.”
She added: “The safety and well-being of Florida’s vulnerable children is DCF’s top priority. Understanding and assessing child fatalities is one way the department analyzes the issues facing families and develops strategies to meet the needs of struggling families and protect vulnerable children.”

Election issue

 Child deaths became an election issue in recent weeks as both Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, and his Democratic challenger, former Gov. Charlie Crist, traded accusations over whose administration better protected children. In two debates, Scott has stated that child fatalities have declined dramatically since he took office in 2011. In 2009, he said in the first debate, 97 children with a DCF history died. “Last year,” he added, “we were down to 36 deaths.” (The DCF child death website actually lists 45.) “That’s still way too many,” he said. “We don’t want to have one death. But it’s a dramatic improvement from when Charlie was there.”

Scott repeated the assertion in a news release and in the second debate last Wednesday.

A careful study of thousands of pages of state documents makes clear that the number Scott cited and the one on the DCF website are both distortions of reality. They are contorted by years-long delays in completing investigations — thus keeping deaths off the books — by a decision to narrow the definition of what constitutes neglect, and by a determination to “unverify” some child deaths that had previously been “verified” as abuse or neglect.
Said Pamela Graham, a Florida State University social work professor who served on a Department of Health statewide death review committee for five years: “Numbers lie if you aren’t counting them.”
For many years, state child protection systems have been evaluated in large part by a standard measure: “verified” child deaths “with priors” — that is, the number of youngsters whose families had prior contact with the state. That is the number that Gov. Scott says is declining. But the decline in deaths with priors can be traced to the factors cited above.
Drownings and accidental suffocations differ from, say, beating or shooting deaths in an important way: “There are human decisions in how you categorize them,” said Richard Gelles, who is dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice. There is simply no wiggle room as to whether a beating is a child abuse death. In contrast, a drowning can be a neglect death, or, as many more of them are now called, merely tragic accidents.

‘Verified deaths’

Verified child deaths did spike during the Crist administration, whose term ended in January 2011. And the numbers on DCF’s newly minted website show that overall child deaths — whether from abuse or illness or something else — have receded somewhat. But the more striking decline has been in the percentage of child deaths that are “verified” as neglect or abuse.
In 2009, 43 percent, or 206, of DCF’s 474 reported child deaths were verified. The percentage dropped to 34 percent in 2010, 31 percent in 2011 and 2012, and then to 10 percent in 2013. So far this year, 13 percent of DCF’s 348 reported deaths have been verified, the records show.
Changes in the standard for verification of child deaths have led to some unusual variations. For instance, Broward County — where BSO investigates child deaths under contract, independent of DCF — tallied 21 “verified” child deaths from abuse or neglect in 2013 out of 30 total fatalities, or more than two-thirds. In Miami-Dade, as of Thursday night, DCF had not verified a single 2013 death as being from abuse or neglect out of the 39 overall fatalities for that county listed on the agency’s website.
On Thursday, the June 21, 2013, killing of Ezra Raphael remained unclassified, though the boyfriend of Ezra’s mother, Claude Alexis, is in jail awaiting trial on a murder charge. Alexis told North Miami Beach police he whipped the child with a belt for spilling bathwater. After the Herald asked about the 39 Miami cases Friday morning, Ezra’s case was switched that same day to “verified.”
The July 20, 2013, death of Jayden Villegas-Morales remains unverified, though his father, Angel Villegas, is charged with manslaughter. Of Jayden’s death, DCF says only that the “2-year-old child was found unresponsive by his father.”
Lambert, DCF’s spokeswoman, said 15 of the 39 Miami-Dade child fatalities from last year remain under investigation by the department.

Aftermath of reforms

Following the Herald’s series on child deaths, Innocents Lost, lawmakers passed a sweeping reform bill. One of its provisions required DCF to maintain the website with details on every child death that is reported. The website depicts a dramatic decline in the verification of deaths in categories that are susceptible to manipulation: the drownings and accidental smotherings. In 2009, before the new neglect guidelines took effect, 76 drownings were recorded. Of those, 58 — or 76 percent — were verified as resulting from neglect, and, among those, 26, or 45 percent, came from families with a prior agency history.
So far this year, DCF has tallied 66 drowning deaths. Only nine of the 66 cases were “verified” as resulting from neglect — or 13 percent — and only one of those nine involved a child whose family had any DCF involvement in the prior five years.
Over five years, then, the share of drowning deaths that were verified as neglect dropped from 76 percent to 13 percent. And in the category that is used to judge Florida’s child-protective efforts against other states — deaths with priors — only one of the 66 drownings from this year is on course to make the list.
The percentage of unsafe sleep deaths verified by DCF also declined, though far less sharply. In 2009, DCF reported 97 such fatalities; among them, 31, or 30 percent, were verified. Of those, 21, or 68 percent were children with a prior family history within the previous five years. In 2013, DCF reported 103 unsafe sleep deaths, and 26 of them, or 25 percent, were verified, DCF’s records show. Among the 26 that were verified, fewer than half involved children with a prior agency history.
Lambert said investigating drowning or unsafe sleep deaths is particularly challenging. “Deaths resulting from drowning and co-sleeping require the most extensive analysis and investigation as these deaths can sometimes be tragic accidents,” she said.
Gelles, the social work dean, said the total number of drowning and unsafe sleep deaths is generally not susceptible to manipulation — but the precipitous decline in cases that are verified suggests that those numbers are “fudged.”
“They are no less dead,” he added.

The death of Nyla Hardy was counted. And then it wasn’t.

Nyla was born on April 17, 2013, to 22-year-old Alysha Rivers and 24-year-old Kendrick Hardy, two longtime drug abusers. Rivers, according to state records, “admitted to smoking two blunts [of marijuana] a day, and the father admitted to smoking five blunts a day.” A former foster child herself, Rivers had lost custody of an older child in 2007 due to marijuana abuse.
Two months before Nyla was born, DCF received a report of physical abuse, burns and environmental hazards involving older siblings, including one who was previously removed but later reunited with the parents. The allegations were ruled unfounded, and the agency closed its case when the mother agreed to accept help from the state.
When Nyla was 3 weeks old, her parents smoked marijuana and then went to bed. Hardy had rolled over onto the newborn once before, the mother said, but the couple continued to co-sleep with the child anyway. That night, “the mother stated she placed the baby in the middle of the bed, with her arm around her,” a report said. When she woke up the next morning, Nyla “was all blue; she was cold and hard.” She also had suffered “multiple hemorrhages...two contusions,” and was drenched in her own blood — so much so, a report said, that the local medical examiner initially said the death most likely “will turn into a homicide.”
In the end, the cause of death was ruled undetermined. In November 2013, the Herald obtained records on 40 child death investigations DCF submitted to a consultant, Casey Family Programs, for the consultant to analyze. At the time, Nyla Hardy’s death had been “verified” as a neglect death. But months later, when a formal death review was attached to DCF’s fatality website, the classification had been switched to unverified. It now will never be counted among the 2013 neglect-related deaths.
Even as it deemed the case an unverified death, the final death review noted: “Due to the extensive use of drugs by the parents, a child died while in their care.”

‘Verified’ to ‘unverified’

Charlize Terrell’s name has vanished from the 2013 count, as well. Her death also was among the 40 cases reviewed last year by the consultant, and a five-page “casework analysis” provided to the Herald noted an investigation of her May 4, 2013, death was “closed” and “verified.” Charlize was born addicted to her mother’s opiate drugs, and spent several weeks in a hospital detoxifying from them.
Charlize died 10 weeks after birth. Both of her parents “admitted to being under the influence of methadone and alcohol the night Charlize died,” a report said. And though the details of her death remained undetermined, “investigators believe that the mother likely rolled over on top of the infant after falling asleep under the influence.”

In a final death review, the “verified” finding was changed to unverified. Charlize’s death will not be counted.

The “casework analysis” of the May 31, 2013, death of Brooklyn Stewart prepared for the DCF consultant concluded that the 1-year-old girl’s drowning “should be” verified, records obtained by the Herald showed. Brooklyn was the toddler left unsupervised in a kiddie pool with her slightly older brother. “Neighbors reported that the children were often seen outside unattended,” the initial review said. It added that Brooklyn’s mother offered differing accounts of the drowning.

Brooklyn’s parents had been the subject of 11 DCF complaints, the most recent four months before Brooklyn’s death.

A bruise on Brooklyn’s head supported her older brother’s claim that he had pushed her in the pool, the report said.
Despite what was written initially, DCF still closed the case as unverified, without offering any explanation in the formal death review for the switch. And despite the formal finding that abuse or neglect did not cause Brooklyn’s death, her siblings were removed from their parents’ care. Brooklyn’s death did not count.
In another of the Casey Family Programs reviews obtained by the Herald, an unnamed DCF administrator wrote that the March 17, 2013, drowning of a 1-year-old Polk County boy should be verified, as the agency had faulted the family for failing to supervise the toddler — a lapse that led to the boy’s death. Yet that case, too, was never counted.
An unnamed DCF administrator in another case reviewed by the consultant chided death investigators for failing to verify the Feb. 28, 2013, smothering death of a 4-month-old Manatee County girl. The infant’s mom had been the subject of four prior child abuse hotline reports from 2011 through 2013, including two reports of violence between the parents.
“The child’s father,” the administrator wrote, “admitted he had been educated on co-sleeping dangers by the paternal grandmother, who works with infants and children, yet despite this knowledge, he chose to place his infant daughter face down on a blanket in his bed.”
Still, Tampa Bay’s child death supervisor at the time, Lisa Rivera, suggested — in clear conflict with the administrator cited in the Casey Families report — that the father may not have been aware of the dangers of co-sleeping. Though the infant’s mother had been warned in a prior DCF probe, Rivera wrote, “the mother admitted that she later failed to share that information with him.”
Rivera now is the top child death administrator statewide. She wrote a recent email in which she asked that a death in Broward from unsafe sleeping be changed from verified. “Increased risk factors, yes,” Rivera wrote, “verifiable maltreatment, no.” It is unclear whether the death was later discarded from the state’s tally.
And in a particularly unusual case, the agency chose not to verify a suffocation death only because investigators were unsure which parent smothered the 35-day-old baby in bed with them. “Case is being closed with not-substantiated findings of death, due to not being able to determine which caregiver was responsible for the rollover onto the child,” the report said.
Lambert said the department has limited options when a medical examiner’s findings are undetermined and police conclude there is insufficient evidence to make an arrest. In such cases, Lambert said, “DCF also does not have enough evidence to verify. However, we do have authority to remove surviving siblings” when evidence suggests they remain in danger.
Graham, the FSU professor who spent five years on the Department of Health’s statewide fatality committee, which attempts to glean patterns from child deaths, said she was struck by how often the same agency missteps repeated themselves. “You see the same issues over and over and over — and they are all correctable,” Graham said.
“The thing that disturbs me the most is that the energy that is put toward keeping the [“verified abuse”] numbers at a minimum could be better spent looking at the real issues, and preventing future deaths,” Graham said. “To me, that is the biggest crime: We are spending so much energy not looking at cases to make ourselves look good. We should be figuring out how to do this better.”

Florida child deaths by year

2009

Total deaths: 474
Verified: 206
Percentage verified: 43

2010

Total deaths: 469
Verified: 164
Percentage verified: 35

2011

Total deaths: 428
Verified: 136
Percentage verified: 32

2012

Total deaths: 408
Verified: 129
Percentage varified: 32

2013

Total deaths: 432
Verified: 45
Percentage verified: 10

2014 to date

Total deaths: 358
Verified: 45
Percentage varified: 13
Source: DCF child death website

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article3016499.html

Scott claim of fewer child abuse deaths questioned

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, Associated Press; KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press

MIAMI — Republican Gov. Rick Scott repeatedly tells voters that abused and neglected children are safer under his leadership than when his Democratic opponent Charlie Crist was governor, but an Associated Press examination of that claim shows that campaign claim may be an exaggeration.

Scott says deaths among children who have come to the Department of Children and Families' attention have plummeted from 97 in 2009 to 36 last year, but child welfare experts say any drop is attributed to the way DCF responds to abuse reports and changes to what is considered a death caused by neglect or abuse. The result artificially reduces the number of child deaths compared to Crist's 2007-11 term.

 "It's amazing how this works, isn't it? You just change how you do things and you can make it appear ... like things have improved," said Pam Graham, who was on the state's child abuse death review team until December and who is a professor at Florida State University's College of Social Work.
Three times during a debate last Friday, Scott said 97 children with a DCF history died of abuse in 2009. But the state's Child Abuse Death Review Team, which is independent of DCF and often highly critical of the agency, says only 69 children fell into that category that year. Scott's staff said the 97 figure came from a private company hired by DCF and the Scott administration that examined child deaths between 2007 and 2013. The administration says the company's analysis is based on updated data.
After the debate, Scott's campaign issued a release saying child abuse deaths have declined dramatically since he took office in 2011. But the governor and his team omitted a crucial point: Child welfare officials no longer count children who drown or infants and toddlers who die because a sleeping parent rolls onto them, saying there had to be a caregiver's willful act for the death to be considered abuse or neglect. The new standard meant many deaths weren't counted, even when there was evidence that parental drug use contributed.

The result made it appear there were fewer deaths. The change came under Crist but has affected the numbers since Scott took office.
The effect was immediate and the number of verified child abuse and neglect deaths dropped 30 percent under Crist, from 197 to 136 between 2009 and 2010, according to a tally by the state Department of Health. In the three years since Scott took office, the figures dropped to 130, 129 and 112, according to state data. This includes verified abuse and neglect deaths where the family had no history with DCF.
Crist said Scott's use of the death figures to score political points is "unconscionable."
"These children aren't political pawns to be played with," Crist said in a telephone interview. "I don't think anybody would expect anyone in political office to utilize the fate of children under the care of an agency for political gain."
Scott spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said the governor "has laid out a clear plan to protect Florida's children and keep our reforms at DCF moving forward," including additional supervision and risk detection methods. Amid growing scrutiny of DCF this year, Scott and the Republican-led Legislature overhauled the child welfare system, dedicating roughly $18.5 million to hire nearly 200 new investigators.

But it's difficult to say whether children have been safer under the Scott or Crist administration. DCF has had a troubled history for decades.
Graham believes it's misleading to say children are safer under Scott's leadership.
"When you look at the overall number of kids that die, it really hasn't gone down that much," she said.
Graham said DCF is screening out a higher percentage of calls to the state child abuse hotline under Scott, which means both fewer investigations and fewer deaths ultimately categorized as abuse.
Advocates are angry that child abuse deaths are being politicized, especially since several gruesome child deaths made national headlines on Scott's watch including a recent tragedy in Bell, Florida. Don Spirit fatally shot his six grandchildren and his daughter before killing himself. Records show DCF had been called 18 times to investigate the family over several years, both under Scott and Crist.
George Sheldon, who was Crist's DCF secretary, said he and his predecessor decided that more cases should be sent to the child death review team, including drowning and co-sleeping deaths. This year the Legislature mandated that the review team examine all suspicious deaths.
"To not see the broader picture is in essence just hiding the real problem, which is we could do more. If you're going to spend your time saying there were fewer deaths, then you're ignoring the bigger problem. New deaths are occurring," Graham said.

Read more at http://www.wral.com/scott-claim-of-fewer-child-abuse-deaths-questioned/14079721/#V3sRtmEhKDQIkSTv.99

Rick Scott And David Wilkins Do You Remember Taking This Oath?

Rick Scott and David Wilkins,          

I, (fill in with your name), a citizen of the State of Florida and of the United States of America, and being employed by or an officer of and a recipient of public funds as such employee or officer, do hereby solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Florida.

Do you remember taking this oath?

You have been made aware of numerous violations of law within DCF and police agencies.  Yet, you do nothing to correct these problems.

Police agencies and DCF employees routinely and illegally violate the Florida Constitution and the U.S. Constitution by unlawfully entering a person’s dwelling without a warrant.  By permitting this to continue day after day you are an accomplice to constitutional violations and you are aiding and abetting unlawful activity.

I am calling upon you to follow your oath or stand down.

Chapter 876

CRIMINAL ANARCHY, TREASON, AND OTHER CRIMES AGAINST PUBLIC ORDER (in relevant part)

[E]mployed by or who now or hereafter are on the payroll of the state, or any of its departments and agencies, subdivisions, counties, cities, school boards and districts of the free public school system of the state or counties, or institutions of higher learning, except candidates for federal office, are required to take an oath before any person duly authorized to take acknowledgments of instruments for public record in the state in the following form: 

Public employees; oath.—

(1)  876.05 All persons who now or hereafter are:

I, (fill in name), a citizen of the State of Florida and of the United States of America, and being employed by or an officer of   and a recipient of public funds as such employee or officer, do hereby solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Florida.

(2) official or employing governmental agency prior to the approval of any voucher for the payment of salary, expenses, or other compensation. Said oath shall be filed with the records of the governing

History.—s. 1, ch. 25046, 1949; s. 22, ch. 83-214; s. 55, ch. 2007-30; s. 77, ch. 2011-40

Governor Rick Scott And David Wilkins Do You Remember The Oath You Took?

 Rick Scott And David Wilkins,

Do you remember taking this oath? You have been made aware of numerous violations within DCF, family courts, and police agencies.

The simple fact that they do not need a search warrant to enter your home is a clear violation of the US and State of Florida constitution. By allowing this to continue day after day you are an accomplice and you are aiding and abetting.

I am calling upon you to follow your oath or stand down.

Chapter 876
CRIMINAL ANARCHY, TREASON, AND OTHER CRIMES AGAINST PUBLIC ORDER View Entire Chapter
 876.05 All persons who now or hereafter are Public employees; oath.—(1)  employed by or who now or hereafter are on the payroll of the state, or any of its departments and agencies, subdivisions, counties, cities, school boards and districts of the free public school system of the state or counties, or institutions of higher learning, except candidates for federal office, are required to take an oath before any person duly authorized to take acknowledgments of instruments for public record in the state in the following form:

I,  , a citizen of the State of Florida and of the United States of America, and being employed by or an officer of   and a recipient of public funds as such employee or officer, do hereby solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Florida.

Said oath shall be filed with the records of the governing (2) official or employing governmental agency prior to the approval of any voucher for the payment of salary, expenses, or other compensation.
History.—s. 1, ch. 25046, 1949; s. 22, ch. 83-214; s. 55, ch. 2007-30; s. 77, ch. 2011-40

Rick Scott,     rick.scott@eog.myflorida.com

David Wilkins,     dcf-osc@dcf.state.fl.us

Manatee County,Florida has long made a business of stealing children!!!!

Dulce looks real abuse doesn't  she?

Rick Scott,

Please read this article, you will notice that it is Manatee county, which is under the jurisdiction of Robin Jensen, the same attorney that destroyed our family. If you go to the link you will read comments that say such things as "That is why I left Florida" this is not an isolated problem. Please Please help FL families. Do some research, become a child advocate, you are interested in your political career, here is a stand that you can take.

http://www.nolanchart.com/article4132_The_Business_of_Child_Stealing_in_Florida.html

Under 5 years, blond, blue-eyed - $6,000.00. a top of the line product

We are going to take you behind the lies into the ugly truth that is destroying families for profit every day, in every community across America.� You won't want to believe it but when you see their faces, hear their voices, you will understand why this is happening and what it means to your own life, even if you don't have children.
The same system that views children as commodities to be sold also has plans for you.� There is a solution and we will get to that.�

The CPS steals children using the system paid for by citizens who believe it is being used to protect those in need.� That is a fraud; the system actually pumps money into the personal accounts of all those involved in the system, converting children into cash while destroying them and their families.� The number of children who emerge from the system, able to function normally, are near zero.� Some are never seen again.

The system used includes three stages.� The first phase is to shock and intimidate the parents into consenting to let their children be processed into the system.� The second phase is to force parents, terrified for their children, to begin a process of 'case management.'� That process is a template that is designed to push the parents into emotional meltdown and bankruptcy.� The third phase is to sever the parental rights entirely and sell the children.�

In the wake of this trauma families are atomized, destroyed.� Parents and grandparents never again see the children who connect them to the future.� Children lose their past and the anchoring each of us needs to develop into a healthy human being.�

Those who carry the process through the stages are well compensated.� Agents, Case workers, judges, physicians, clerks, and others expect and receive compensation for services often not even delivered.� Compensation takes place through corporations.� State employees who fail to take children out of homes are penalized; many of these leave the system which has been converted from a system originally intended to help families to one that profits those in control.��

Across the country, CPS experienced high turn overs in case workers struggling under impossible work loads for many years.� Good people, motivated to help struggling families were frustrated and unable to help; those are the kinds of caseworkers who simply quit.� Cases of extreme abuse while children were in foster care were common.� Nothing about the system gave cause for hope it was working.� Then the picture changed.� The idea that instead of providing services the system as a whole should move to the model of generating income took hold as the concept of privatization was widely adopted by government. Privatization, introduced during the Reagan Years, was pushed by think tanks that saw government, a corporation itself, as the logical partner for other large corporate interests. Children, roads, military services, each of these and more were recalibrated to provide income to those in control.� In this way, the problem with social services created an opening that in the late 1990s allowed the least ethical to profit from the pain of others.

PL 105-89 (HR 867), passed into law November 19, 1997, was intended to ensure that children who could not be reunited with their birth families could be placed in loving homes.� But those entrusted to carry out the desperately needed changes found the measure enabled a very different agenda. CPS agents and caseworkers could be trained to look at their industry as a profit center.� The system began to view children as product to be harvested and parents as barriers to be demolished.�

The system became a template for kidnapping, carried out by barely educated caseworkers who were told that they made the law.� This itself had become a tenet of belief held by those in power as the foundations of Constitutional law continued to be eroded by a judiciary who graduated from law school ignorant of America's foundational documents.� The shift from Constitutional law to statute and whim of court, low-level government employee, and law enforcement is documented in "The Anti-Government Movement Guidebook," published by the� National Center for State Courts in1999.

The stage was set and the feeding frenzy was about to begin.�

The process goes through three stages of slow death; ripped from their families the children are bewildered, afraid, vulnerable to the system.� The process hinges on secrecy and an asserted immunity from accountability for all involved.� Power, through the official but unacknowledged transfer from the Constitution to government by statute, code and whim, renders all of those outside government vulnerable.� Caught in that process parents lose track of all the things that brought happiness and normality to their lives.� Years later this will mark them.� Most will never recover.�

This is the story of three families.� Each of their stories is still in motion because the pain never stops.�

Stage One

Manatee County, Florida has long made a business of stealing children.� Families who settle there do not know that, however.� They are attracted to the weather, the beauty of the area.� If they knew they would never settle anyplace in Florida, which is arguably has the most corrupt CPS system in the nation.� The County is run by a Board of Commissioners who meet at this well polished table.�

Children are a commodity for which there is a steady and growing market both in the United States and across the world.� Child sex-slaves arrive in Europe and elsewhere from unspecified locations; children taken from homes routinely end up in the porn industry.� It has been going on for many years but since it did not impact most of us it was easy to ignore.� But as counties across the country have cycled down into bankruptcy the need to pump harder for every buck to be made has become more compelling.� Today it is not just the most vulnerable who are targeted but families that would before have been passed over as too well connected.� In Manatee County the pumping is in fast forward.��

Monday, June 2^nd 2008

The two young sons of the Roberts were dropped off at the home of their babysitter, Christina Holbrook, residence11534 57^th Street Circle East, Parrish, Florida.� Both parents work.� Michelle and James Roberts are both veterans of the US Navy who met while in service to their country.� Both came from families with long and honorable histories of serving in the military.��

Their oldest son, had been disciplined by his father the day before for jumping up and down on his baby brother, a potentially life-threatening activity.� Spanking was the kind of discipline James himself experienced as a child growing up in Tennessee.� The spanking had left a slight bruise.��

CPS arrived at the babysitters home at 9:30am.� They proceeded to strip the two boys and photograph them in the nude, questioning them for an hour. This was a bewildering and frightening experience for the boys.���

The first James and Michelle heard of this was when Michelle received a phone call at 3:30pm from Alicia Habib.� Habib presented herself as an agent for Child Protective Services, demanding that the couple present themselves for an 'interview'. No criminal complaint was presented.� But the process of intimidation and fear was launched.��

Here, Michelle and James find out, to their shock, that the kids have been stripped and photographed.� Left feeling as if the ground had been cut out from under them they endured with shock the moment when the deputy sheriff read James his Miranda rights.� He was not charged; no criminal complaint was served.� Michelle is interviewed.� They are given orders.� Michelle is to be present when James saw their children.� CPS is moving towards building paperwork to take the children away from their parents.��

During the interview they were shown the photos taken of their naked children by the deputy.� The children's faces were frozen in tears.� He did not show them all the photos, keeping them under the paperwork.� Michelle found his behavior intimidating.� As the photos were shown he questioned her about their use of discipline.���

Soon Michelle and James will realize that the CPS has no power unless they give it to them.� CPS depends on the ignorance of ordinary people.� The first phase had begun.��

The system ground them out fine; dehumanizing them and working with fine-tuned intention to show them, by its actions, that they had no rights and no recourse.� At the end of the week a hearing was set; they were now being launched into the second phase of the process that intended to wrest their children from them.� But during those endless days they began to come out of the shock and consider their alternatives.� They considered the Constitution and the rights they knew they had both sworn to defend as members of the armed forces of America.��

Michelle loaded the two boys in their car and drove them hundreds of miles to the town where James had grown up.� There, she left them with their great-grandparents.� When you are seven months pregnant no long drive is comfortable, but for her children Michelle would risk anything.��

In the car she prayed that she would not miscarry the baby held so close to her heart.��

The two young parents are both veterans of the War in Iraq. Each had joined the Navy, after looking forward to serving their country from their early teems.�� She planned this as her career, since 7^th Grade.� He, since taking in ROTC in High School.��

But they had joined a military that they believed cared for its own and kept its promises; after finding that their small son would be have to be left with someone else while both served in the war zone, they resigned.� Their son, Lukas, was born the following October.��

Now, they knew what the military is about.� To them, they were just bodies to fill slots that civilians could fill at twice the pay.� Never previously interested in politics they began to think about how the world was being run.��

From the time you join you are told he is your commander and chief.� She was not a Bush fan, but you cannot say it without fear of reprisal.��

But Florida CPS was not finished with them.� Although they did not know it, Habib stood to make nearly $10,000 as her bounty for taking the children, both very adoptable, from their home.��

They never could have imagined that the elderly great-grand-parents would be threatened with arrest, but that is what happened.� They began studying the Constitution; This, they knew was the real law in America.� If they understood it they could use it.�

Now they understand that they should never have talked to CPS.� If they had not, CPS would have had to leave them alone.� CPS uses fear and intimidation to force the appearance that there they have entered into a 'contract' with parents.� But since a valid contract cannot exist without the elements of disclosure, consent, and equitable exchange this is a fraud.� All parents get is bankruptcy, heartbreak, and too often death.��

The Case Plan Ploy � Adam Umholtz

Adam comes from a family that lived in a log cabin in Pennsylvania.� The cabin was 230 years old. Made of chestnut beams that are from a species that is not extinct the beams were hand hewed and rectangular and criss crossed.� Adam's dad was a pastor for the Southern Home Mission Board.� Adam's younger brother was born there, in the horseshoe shaped valley that was filled with berry bushes and food they grew themselves.��

Adam went to school at the Advanced Training Institute of America, now the ATI.� Now he is an entrepreneur, or was until his life and family was hijacked by the CPS.� Adam's children were taken from him and his wife on Monday, July 28^th, 2007.� They were given a case plan that it was impossible to fulfill.�

As part of the 72 goals laid out in the plan was one requirement that Adam attend a class for sexual offenders who had served time in prison.� This was impossible for Adam to do.� Adam is attending a study on successful parents and couples, a study in which he and his wife were invited to participate.� Both parents are strong Christians who take their faith seriously. Neither parent has ever been to prison for any cause, much less a sexual offense.� The charges were falsified made by a neighbor who was later charged with having committed a sexual offense themselves.

Adam cannot attend the classes available because he has never been to prison and has never been a sexual offender. He is not eligible for the class in any case. So the court told Adam to confess to a crime he did not commit to get his kids back.� The court has an agenda.� If Adam confesses they have a clear track for severing his parental rights.� The lack of justice does not bother the court or the attorney who has urged him to confess to a crime he did not commit. They are all paid through the process that steals children for resale.��

Parents are routinely told that to 'complete their case plan' they must fulfill requirements that force them to leave jobs that prevent them from attending classes scheduled from 9 � 5 on work days.� They are told they cannot be self employed.� Every possible block is put in their paths to complete a 'requirement' that is pointless in any case.� The same pattern is reported by parents across the United States.� Angelina Alexander, a parent in California was told she must quit her job as a taxi driver because she was self employed.� Yet she had taken the job, the only one she could find, to fulfill the requirements to attend classes.� In her case the report that took her small son from her home was from a former boyfriend who had never seen the child.� Complaints that the charge was false were ignored as her processing continued.��

Mainstream Americans are at risk today and have no idea what is coming. In Adam's case the CPS had targeted� the kids because they were homeschooling and because they had building materials in the back yard.� Then a malicious neighbor,� made sexual allegations.� The neighbor was later proven to have lied.��

But the fact that all the 'charges' were illegal did not stop them from forcing you to undertake the� 'Case Plan.'� There were no charges but they had already taken their eight children out of the home.� If the family had known they would have refused to talk to CPS.

Adam and his wife are now approaching bankruptcy although they are better off than many couples because at least they do not have to hide to keep the child still living with them. Most parents face the same problem.� Attempts to fulfill the case plan make it impossible to earn a living or are impossible to fulfill.� There are no charges.� There have been no charges.� There will be no charges. As with most couples, they force the father to leave so that they will have a clear shot at grabbing the children from the mother.���

CPS has continuously made false allegations, added their youngest child, born after they took the original eight children, to the present case, and over and over ignored the orders of the court.� One of their daughters in foster care is suffering from a wound on her foot, acquired in the foster home, for which she is receiving no treatment.� The wound continues to fester and they can do nothing.���

Although there are no charges Adam and his wife are allowed to see the kids only two hours a week with supervision.� And the court continues to threaten to sever their parental rights. Adam does not intend to let that happen.��

Adam and his wife are considering their options now that they understand the fraud that has been perpetrated.� Those options are growing, along with their understanding of the Constitution and how the system in place has worked to negate their rights.��

Phase Three � Severing Parental Rights

Greg Pound and his wife, Malissa, had their parental rights severed in November of 2007.� The incident that brought CPS into their lives was a simple accident.� A friend's dog visiting their home bit their baby.� It could have happened to anyone; the dog's owner was desperately sorry, the dog had never� harmed anyone before.�� Accidents happen.� There was a time when an accident was treated with offers of assistance, not viewed as the means for grabbing children� from their parents and their home.� But that was before those in power noticed the opportunity PL 105-89 (HR 867) offered them.�

For four years the Pounds saw their children for just two hours a month.� Looking at the children, across the barriers built by CPS always reduced them to tears.�

The last time the Pounds saw their children was at the YMCA in Pinellas County.� That 'not for profit' is paid 125 million a year, just for that county, according to Pound who says he has researched the subject exhaustively, to 'babysit' kids as they meet their parents in a stark ten by twelve foot room for the two hours they are allowed to be together for those months when they still hoped to be reunited.�

The system is intended to separate children, a valuable commodity, from their parents.� Mandates to reunite children and parents are consistently ignored as children are processed further and further into the system. What then happens to the children varies, but is in all cases appalling.�

Along with the system abuse of families parents attempting to work in the system report that FOIA requests on such routine matters as copies of the Oath of Office and bonds, required by the Constitution, for each judge or elected official or law enforcement officer, are not produced, despite repeated requests. Many ask, over and over again, why such requests should be met with silence and hostility.� Parents continue to struggle to regain custody of their children and to exact accountability from those who claim sovereign immunity as government employees from the impact of their acts on ordinary Americans.� The claim of sovereign immunity for those employed by government is, according to Constitutional experts such as not employed by government entirely without foundation.�

The three families whose cases appear here each report that they will never stop fighting.� Each family is presently filing a civil rights suit against those involved in their several cases.� In light of yesterday's revelation on child-sex rings, operating across the United States but very present in their own areas of Florida, their questions are ever more anguished as they deal with the echoing emptiness of homes that once held the laughter of children.���

Randy