American Family Wronged by the American Government

This is a 100% true account. Names have been omitted to protect the children, not the guilty.

Picture this all too common fact in today’s society. A young married couple have two children, but there are serious problems. The father is continuously in trouble with the law, is discovered to have psychological problems, and they eventually divorce. The mother moves back in with her parents, along with the children.  During the entire four-year marriage, the mother’s parents had done most of the “child raising” because neither parent had the basic skills to do so. The young mother eventually realizes she does not have the ability to properly care for her children, so she goes to court, and asks that her parents be given full custody so they would have the authority to do the simple things, like enroll the kids in school or take them to the doctor. The court does award custody to the grandparents, and rewards the mother for caring enough to make sure her children were properly taken care of, by placing her on the “Central Registry” of persons who have abused or neglected children.

Fast forward a few years. Although the children call her “Mother or Mommy," she is regarded by the 6- and 4-year-old children more like a sister in their minds. She visits occasionally, and even stays for a few days at a time once in a while. Her life has taken her elsewhere, and she eventually remarries and moves to another state, leaving the children permanently with the grandparents. It should be noted that in this particular case most details are not necessary, but it is important that this be pointed out. When the parents divorced, the father was receiving a disability check from Social Security. Therefore he was not required to pay any extra child support, the government (you and me) did that for him. When the mother gave custody to the grandparents, the court asked if the grandparents required or needed child support from the mother. They said no, stating that she had no job, had little hope of getting a job, and child support would only cause her more trouble when she could not pay it. The judge ordered she should NOT pay child support.

Because the children were 6 and 4 at the time, and had always slept in the same room, that is how they kept going at the grandparent’s house for a while. There was an extra room in the house that was to be used for one of the children when the time came to give them their own rooms. Several years later, when the kids were 8 and 6, a friend of the family, who they had known for quite a while, was hit hard by the economy and lost his job, which led to losing his apartment. Rather than just let him live on the street, the family allowed him to use the spare room for a short time so he could get back on his feet. I should emphasize this man was well known and the family was familiar with his background. However, this is when the problem began.

The man they had taken in, and tried to help, repaid the favor by molesting the older child who was 8 at the time. The saga takes two tracks at this point, I will talk about the man first, then get back to the family. When this unthinkable act happened, the police and DSS were, of course, called in. During the investigation he was ordered out of the house by all parties. When he found out he was going to actually be charged, he fled to another state and hid. A warrant was issued for his arrest and he was entered into the NCIC database nationwide. Because no one seemed to want to put out the effort to actually hunt him down, the grandfather started his own investigation, and actually found the town where the man was hiding. After calling the local police to let them know what he had discovered, and giving them the physical proof of his location, nothing happened. The grandfather then called the police in the town where he had found the guy, talked to a detective there who was willing to listen, gave him the NCIC warrant number which he looked up on his computer. That very evening, they had the man in custody and ready to start the extradition process. It took the local police almost three months to actually travel to the other state to bring him back. Once he was back in local custody, and before he could post the $25,000 CASH bond, an ex-wife discovered he was in jail, and from still another state, had him arrested for back child support. So, five months after he first fled from molestation charges, he was back in local jail, then his ex gets him incarcerated for several months for child support. Two weeks before he was scheduled to be released on the child support sentence, the county prosecutor called the grandparents to his office for a conference. The news was devastating. The prosecutor told them the statement given by an 8-year-old, did not match the physical evidence well enough to (in his words) “GUARANTEE A CONVICTION” therefore he was going to dismiss the charges against the man for molesting the child. The end result was the child molester goes completely free to do whatever he wants. That was the last the family heard from, or about the man who molested their grandchild. But, they had an even worse horror story happening at the same time.

As noted, there is a second track to this story. That part is what the police, DSS, and the family court system did to this family. There is proof of everything stated in this report. I say that at the beginning of this just to clarify. What happened to this family is an indictment of the badly broken system, and serves to prove that same system needs to be completely revamped from the TOP down.

A family literally destroyed and eliminated:

How is that possible? No government agency would ever do anything like that! Well, the government can, and does do things like that every day. Probably the saddest part of this account is the fact that it is so common. Let us start back when the police and DSS were called in because the child was molested.

The act was discovered on a Thursday in late October. That day, both DSS and the police interviewed everyone in the family, including both children. It should be noted the grandmother had just undergone surgery on her neck, and returned home from the hospital the same day. She was in a neck brace and about to go through several weeks of recovery. DSS and the police told the grandparents as long as the accused man left the house, there would be no problem allowing the children to stay. Of course, that is exactly what happened. All officials were perfectly comfortable with the children staying with the grandparents. They were told to be sure the children went to school the next day, just as normal. This seemed odd at the time because by the time everyone was gone, it was very late, well past the children’s normal bed time and the grandparents expressed concern about their ability to perform in school the next day. Also, at this interview, the very first thing the agent said to the grandparents was the question “With the shape you people are in, what makes you think you can take care of these kids?” However, they did as they were told, and the kids went to school that Friday. The DSS agent, wrote up a “Safety plan” that said this same thing.

The first indication the grandparents had that something was not right, was when the children’s busses failed to bring them home from school. When the grandfather called the 8-year-old’s school, they refused to tell him anything, but when he called the 6-year-old’s school, it just happened the police officer was still there, and the principal handed him the phone. Note, this was a forced conversation, the officer would not have called the grandparents. The family (grandparents) were not contacted by DSS until after 7:30PM, and that conversation began with the DSS agent stating “we have taken your children." When told they already knew she had done that, she became very belligerent, demanding to know “Who you been talkin to?” and “whose been givin you all this information?”  At that time she stated she needed to pick up “a couple of weeks worth of clothes, and any medicines they need." She then went to the family’s house to get those things. Almost three months later, the family was told that removing a child from school without prior notification to the legal guardian was against DSS policy. When the agent came to the house, she parked her car in front of a vacant house next door and on the opposite side of a large hedge, effectively concealing the car from the family’s house. She then spent about 45 minutes in the house collecting the clothing and medicines. When asked why the children had been taken, the agent told the family it was because there were concerns about the ability of the grandparents to care for them while the grandmother was recovering from the surgery. At the “show cause hearing” the following Monday, she said something completely different.

At the hearing, the agent stated “When I pulled up to the [family’s] house, the kids started screaming ‘please don’t make me go back there’ and ‘I’m afraid to go to that place.' The problem with that statement is this. The only time she could possibly have pulled up in front of the house, with the children, was that Friday night. That means by her own testimony, she left the children unattended in her STATE CAR for about 45 minutes on a very chilly October night. In South Carolina, there is a law that makes it illegal to leave a child unattended in a car. There is no special provision for DSS agents exempting them. When this incident was reported to the police, they refused to do anything against the DSS agent. In addition, about three weeks later, a witness to this incident was discovered.  That witness both saw and heard what took place that evening. The witness saw the car pull up, park in front of the vacant house next door, and when the agent got out, the witness heard the children crying and screaming “Take me home. I want my Nana and Pop Pop. I wanna go home." The witness also said they decided to stick around and keep an eye on the car because “it was obvious the kids were in there by themselves." The witness also verified it was about 45 minutes. This only means ONE thing. The DSS agent committed perjury at the show cause hearing. Also at the hearing, DSS revealed the real reason they were using o take the children. DSS concluded THE GRANDFATHER WAS NEGLIGENT because he allowed the man to use the spare room. This is in spite of the fact that the family had known that person for a long time, knew his history, and to the best of their knowledge there was nothing that would indicate he was a potential danger to any child. They even knew he had two daughters and according to his ex-wife had never shown any indication of anything like this.

The problem has another twist to it also. The CASA volunteer GAL was asked by the grandfather how best to deal with the reporting of the illegal actions of the DSS agent. The GAL responded by saying “Please don’t get that case worker in any trouble! A bad case worker is better than no case worker at all, and we are very short handed at DSS." The GAL system is supposed to be completely independent of DSS and be the people who “speak for the child." Is there any child anywhere, who would want that said on their behalf? When the GAL gave that advice, the grandfather began doing what he knew was the right thing to do and reported the DSS agent to her supervisors, and all the way up the ladder to the STATE director’s office. He also reported, and filed a complaint against the GAL for the obvious covering up of illegal DSS activity, and NOT acting in the best interest of the children. The results of those reports and complaints were the agent was taken off that case, but still works at DSS with no other repercussions. The police refuse to charge her with the criminal act although they seem to have no problem arresting “regular” citizens every day for doing exactly the same thing. The county, and state and NATIONAL GAL/CASA directors made the flat statement they saw no problem with what that volunteer said or did.

Three years later the grandparents were forced to take a “deal” in order to be able to stay in contact with their grandchildren until they are adopted out. I addition, DSS has flatly stated they have no intention of even attempting to keep the siblings together. They will be in separate foster homes, and be adopted to separate families, in direct defiance of Federal mandates stating very possible attempt should be made to keep siblings together. It is also a fact that the foster parent of one of these children has the desire to adopt them both, and has made that desire known.

This is how the state can, will, and does destroy good families.  In this particular family, the grandfather is the last of his line. The grandchildren are their only hope of continuing the family name. DSS has insured the death of this family. When the grandparents die, that family is gone from this Earth forever. Neither grandparent has any kind of criminal history, do not smoke, do not drink, and have been stable, productive, members of society their whole life. This all happened because they were kind to someone they thought was a family friend.