My.Kidjacked.com

Have you ever had a time in your life when you felt like the world was simply spinning and you were just along for the ride? I feel as though my life has been running me. Lots of good and bad things are taking place, more good really than bad but change is oh so stressful.

I wanted to let my faithful readers know that I am not gone, the news articles are still being added regularly, just not quite as many as I’d like. I am still approving posts on our yahoo group and trying to keep up with our Facebook page.

I am more than happy to post a well written story. I save them all and try to go through them when I have spare time. The week of 4th of July is one of our busiest weeks of the year for our business. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

The best news is that soon I will have help for the site and I have many changes in mind for Kidjacked. I’ve found a terrific freelance editor, I’ll be introducing her soon.

I would also like to give a huge thank you to all of you who are submitting news items and posting comments to our blog. One of the worst things that happens to a victim of false allegations, is the feeling of despair and the isolation one feels. Let’s face it, if you have been falsely accused of child molestation, child abuse or neglect; you must be guilty. No questions asked.

Many young mens lives have been ruined by absurb allegations of statutory rape (by the parents) of the boys own girl friend that is only two years younger, which is perfectly normal. The young man ends up on a sexual offender registry for the rest of his life.

The point is not everyone who is accused of wrong-doing, has done wrong. Some “child welfare” agencies are quick to remove children, slow to return them and do little to improve the nuclear families circumstances, while at the same time foster parents are handsomely paid for their (unnecessary) services. This is an injustice.

Children need and desire a safe, stable home within their own family unit and should never be removed from a home without substantial evidence of immediate danger or death. If the federal government wants to enrich the state with grants to assist families, I think it’s wonderful but the rules MUST change. Maybe the foster children should provide input as to whether or not a bonus should be paid for the services they have received. That might shake a few trees.

Vivek S. Sankaran hits the nail on the head with her article, “Change the culture of the foster care system,” posted today in The Detroit News. She said in part:

Change foster care

Wayne County recently joined cities across the country and celebrated the first national Reunification Day to recognize the accomplishments of those who help parents regain custody of children lost to the foster care system.

For years, the goal of reunifying children in foster care with their families has received short shrift. Even though most children come to the attention of child protective services for allegations of neglect, far too many are removed abruptly from their homes and placed with strangers.

Once in foster care, they see their parents and siblings infrequently, change placements too often and receive inadequate medical and mental health treatment. Their parents rarely receive the help they need and they lack a meaningful voice in court.

All of this does enormous harm to the children. Foster care is a toxic intervention that must be used sparingly. An MIT study revealed that outcomes for children in foster care were far worse than similarly maltreated children who remained at home.

There it is in black and white. From MIT, a study that shows outcomes for children in foster care are far worse than similarly maltreated children who remained at home.

Most courts up until this point have been filled with parents, pleading, crying and demanding their children be returned. It won’t be long until the courts are filled with angry, former foster children bringing lawsuits against the state for wrongful removal. The lives that have been destroyed are in the millions. Sankaran goes on to point out some other very interesting facts:

No state system passed recent federal audits evaluating the treatment of foster children in state custody.

These problems are particularly troublesome in Michigan. In 2008, only a third of children who exited foster care were returned to their parents, nearly 20 percentage points below the national average. And the time it takes for Michigan to reunify those families is double the national average.

In contrast, Michigan is swift and efficient at separating children from their parents forever. Our state has the seventh highest rate of terminating parental rights in the country. Michigan has the second largest population of “legal orphans” — children whose only parent is the state.

I haven’t checked but if I had to wager a bet. My money would be on California having the largest population of legal orphans. We remove more children from their parents than any other state in the country.

This is simply unacceptable.

Did you know that in most states a child has five years after his or her 18th birthday to bring legal action against the state? You can bet that most foster children have no idea they have a legal cause of action for their treatment while in foster care, more so, if they were wrongly removed.

The only way I believe we are going to get the attention of our government is to make it too expensive for them to steal our children. Money talks and it’s time they pay up for all the lives who have been destroyed by their evil deeds. Yes, folks, I said it. There is no other way around it. These people are just plain evil.

As most of us are well aware, May has been declared National Foster Care Month. Yes, I realize I am getting this out a little late. Grandma always said, “Better late than never.” Actually, I don’t want to celebrate foster care month, not this May or next or any other month for that matter.

May is National Foster Care Month

The news has been full of heart touching foster care children, parents and facilities. As a previous foster child all I hear is that yet another family failed. Foster care can be a death sentence for many children. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear of another foster child’s death.

There are very few families who don’t have someone who is willing to care for the children who have been deemed “child in need of care” by some authority or another. I simply can’t understand our closed court system that is rampant in the U.S. Any person who has a personal interest in the child in question should be welcomed by the court to speak on behalf of the child. To deny a child the right to have an advocate, a family member or person who gives a damn about the outcome of the hearing, is wrong on so many levels.

I would like to invite current or previous wards of the state — living in foster care — to create their own blog. Please share your personal story. Let your voice be heard. Were you treated fairly? Do you think you are better off now or were you wrongly removed from your home in your eyes?

June is an election month. If you know of a candidate who supports CPS reforms, please share here and on our Facebook page. We need to hear from your candidate.

Kidjacked is pleased to announce a new feature. Create your own blog at My.Kidjacked.com and tell the world your story. This new feature has been in the planning stages for months.

The editor of Kidjacked wants to make it as easy as possible for everyone to share their story and be heard. By organizing the blogs all in one location, we will become a strong voice, united in the quest for family rights. Our children deserve the best we can give them, not to be Kidjacked by agents of a government hell bent on destroying the family.

Fight back today! Tell your story and be heard.

~Annette M. Hall,
Editor of Kidjacked.com

As far as I can tell everyone is lying in this case. The parties in this article both contest the facts in this case. All comments regarding the disputed facts have been deleted, no new posts will be published on this thread.

Is Memphis selling babies to the highest bidder?

The facts of this case as they are presented in this article are in dispute by several family members. I have encouraged both sides of the family to calmly voice their opinions of the case here. Update (9/08/2007): The author of this post and the editors of Kidjacked have been threatened with a lawsuit. Parties in this case are demanding that this article be removed. The names of the parties concerned have been removed.

From beyond the city of Memphis, known—perhaps with a double meaning—as the City of Blues, I wonder what happens behind closed doors that seems to lead repeatedly to old-boy politics and a judicious amount of conspiracy among the people who are supposed to represent the law: its enforcement and its applications.

I watched the drama unfold for many years as a Chinese couple, the Hes, fought to get their biological child back from a Memphis couple who decided they would simply keep the girl, regardless of the birth parents’ wishes. The Hes weren’t abusive, weren’t negligent, weren’t in any way deficient as parents. That’s a legal fact. What they were was ignorant of the ways of Memphis’s dubious legal system. Worse, what they were was Chinese.

That case has finally reached the Tennessee Supreme Court. Maybe—finally, after years of battle—the Hes will receive justice. They’ll be reunited with the daughter who was, in the eyes of most anyone but the family who now has her, stolen from them.

If this were an isolated case, I might consider acquiescing to the loud (white) voices that argue the Hes lied about this, or were negligent about that, or didn’t understand the ramifications of their decisions about this other thing. I’m a loud white voice, too, from the lefty-liberal stomping grounds of Washington State. You know how we blue states are. We thought Iraq was a mistake when more than 50% of you thought it was a good idea.

Memphis’s legal system is also a mistake. If you don’t know it already, let me show you where the weapons of mass destruction really are. And then let me ask you a question that is the fundamental question for everyone in Memphis who assumes the law is on their side.

The Hes weren’t the first. And they aren’t the last. Do you know about DM? She used to live among you, just like the Hes. She used to think Memphis—Germantown, in particular—might be a good place to live. But if your eyes aren’t round, maybe you didn’t get the memo: Memphis doesn’t want you and doesn’t like you and will not be kind to you if you are raped or if your children are stolen. Not if your skin is yellow and you don’t have the cash to manipulate the system.

Beginning in August of 2004, DM discovered that a white man—her husband, as a matter of fact—could use the Memphis system to his advantage, and the local police would extend to him all the respect, deference, and patience normally allotted to the victim of a crime, not the perpetrator.

Editor’s Note: The following accusations are strongly disputed.

• DM’s husband abducted the couple’s ten-month-old baby. The police, by their own admission uninformed about the laws they’re supposed to enforce, did nothing.
• DM’s husband raped her. The accusation itself merits an investigation, but when her husband countercharged her with assault (a staged event that her husband plotted out with a divorce attorney he retained even before getting married), DM was the one arrested, based solely on his word. Her time in custody gave her husband ample opportunity to raid their shared residence for valuables and to flee the scene.
• DM’s husband used the Germantown police as his own personal attack dogs, calling in false reports of theft (items proven to still be in her husband’s possession), child abuse, and a variety of other criminal behaviors that never happened. However, the Germantown police—and his wife (a private investigator, LA), whom her husband hired as well—respond diligently to such reports, provided that the right amount of money is exchanging hands. And it is — there’s a paper trail to prove it.
• DM’s husband harmed his own child to manipulate divorce proceedings against DM: he doused his son in gasoline and accused his estranged wife of the act. DCS and hospital staff where the boy ended up for 5 days all concluded that her husband was a threat to the children. Yet nothing was done. The police in Memphis don’t arrest their friends, apparently.
• DM’s husband attacked and attempted to harm both DM and his son with gasoline. Never mind what he feels for his wife—this is the child he allegedly loves and wants to care for.
• DM’s husband violently raped her again less than five months ago. As of today, he remains free…and with custody of the children.

This is only a fraction of the fiasco that has taken place, again, in the legal machinations of Memphis, Tennessee. The Guardian ad Litem in the case is not only failing to keep the children in a steady relationship with their mother (which is her job, by definition), but she was conveniently requested, by the attorney of DM’s husband.

This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the false police reports that were treated like scripture… police commonsensical failures to gather evidence that anyone who’s watched a single episode of CSI would know to do… manipulative private investigators and shady police officers working together despite official commands not to… and a host of other questionable tactics that strongly suggest politicking, racism, and good ol’ boy camaraderie between the police and a thug with a history of violence. DM’s husband, it seems, has left quite a trail of violence and restraining orders everywhere he goes.

All divorce proceedings are ugly—even the ones that go smoothly still proceed with heartbreak, disillusionment and hopelessness. Your life ends, in a way. But in this case, the Germantown police have allowed themselves, through close personal and financial relationships with DM’s husband, to become one of the divorcing spouses.

There’s a mountain of paperwork that shows what this triangular divorce has become. Who will look at it? If you can’t give it to the police who are sworn to protect you, whom can you give it to? If you are destined to be a victim because your protectors see you as different—racially, socially, economically, politically—then what are you supposed to do to save yourself and your children?

You ask questions. And you ask this question: What are you going to do about this, Memphis? Who polices the police when they choose sides?

M. Ryan
Seattle, WA