And I’m going to pipe up to say that whether CPS can act without judicial order, and if so when, is almost certainly a state-by-state policy deciision, with what treis said apparently being the common (but hardly universal) standard.
This is wrong. If there is an emergent situation, CPS will call the police and the police will do the removal.
Married to a social worker.
If it’s not an emergency, they have to get a court order. If it’s an emergency, they call the cops. They never just grab the kids themselves.
Look you just don’t know what you are talking about:
CPS are the ones that have the legal power to remove children, not the police. While it may be true that the police will accompany CPS workers for safety reasons, the police aren’t the ones doing the removal. There is no requirement for CPS to get the police involved.
They always call the police. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Show me the legal requirement for police involvement. Not what your wife says, the actual law or statement from CPS.
By the way, if it’s an emergency, it’s an emergency that everyone would agree was an emergency, and it’s very temporary (and the physical removal is done by the cops).
What I’m fighting here is the popular image of CPS workers as evil child stealers who go around snatching kids at the drop of a hat because they see a parent smoking a cigarette or swatting a kid on the butt.
The hostility expressed towards CPS in the OP is misplaced and ignorant.
Show me an example of CPS physically removing a child without the participation of the police.
They are mandated reporters. If they encounter an emergent situation, they are mandated by law to call the police. I can’t be assed to find every individual statute, but if you know anything at all about this stuff, then you should already know what a mandated reporter is.
I’ve provided a cite showing that CPS has the power to seize children, which is sufficient to prove my point. You, on the other hand, have refused to provide anything to substantiate the contention that they don’t have this power. Now you ask me to prove a negative, which is essentially impossible to do. I’m not going to play this game any longer. You’re contention is wrong and you don’t know what you’re talking about. Either pony up a cite that supports your case or STFU.
I’m not asking you to prove a negative. I’m asking you to show me a single example of CPS workers unilaterally seizing children from a household without either a court order or the participation of the police.
What hostility toward CPS in the OP? I clearly acknowledged that they may have had good reasons for taking the kids. My purpose, as should be obvious, was to question the ever-increasing practice of both the police and CPS agencies around the country to withhold information about what they’re doing and excusing it by citing vague “privacy concerns.”
In the case of the police, it’s gotten to the point that all we are often told is something along the line of “Five people dead in Indiana trailer park.” The police refuse to disclose who died, their ages, family relationships, what they think happened, etc., even when there is nothing to be accomplished by doing so. Surely the murderer, if he hasn’t been captured, is aware of the ages and relationships of his victims, so why is such recalcitrance on the part of law officials necessary? I’m aware of the need to contact family first so that they don’t first hear about it on the news, but the police will keep up this kind of secrecy for days, even when the murderer has been arrested or found dead at the scene.
And in the case of CPS, yes, they do have an image of overzealousness (or in other cases of not being zealous enough) and swooping in and taking kids under circumstances where most people would not agree that it was necessary. (I happen to think that it is very traumatic for a kid to be taken away from the only parents and home he or she has ever known and stuck with strangers in a completely foreign environment, especially when they don’t know how long it will last or if the separation is permanent.)
So this hiding behind privacy concerns is where my objection lies, not in the fact that CPS took the kids. When the police and CPS agencies do this kind of thing and refuse to divulge details, it smacks to me of two things: One, that the agencies in question simply don’t want to have their judgement and actions questioned; and two, that it makes their job easier when they don’t have to deal with the press, so they claim privacy concerns to wall themselves off from the press and not have to deal with it.
Neither of these are good reasons in my opinion, and it is the fact that I’ve seen information withheld so many times when there is no apparent good reason for it, and where the reasons for it are not disclosed even when the details of the actual incident finally are, that make me suspicious and feel that the authorities are merely using concerns over privacy to stonewall the press and make their jobs easier…which of course sets up a situation that eventually becomes a danger to our rights. Law enforcement and CPS agencies should not be allowed to operate in secrecy.
There are instances where legitimate concerns, like those mentioned upthread where unwarranted attention or publicity would be visited upon the victims, or where it would put them in danger, justify the authorities taking such a stance. Still, there have been far too many instances over the past few years where there appears to be no understandable reason for witholding these kinds of information and where it appears to be done solely for the convenience and protection of the police and CPS agencies involved, and it’s becoming more and more common all the time.
Like I said, pony up a cite or STFU.
And this image is completely unsupported by reality. CPS does not have the authority to “swoop in and take kids.” It doesn’t happen.
A cite for what? That CPS has to call the cops if they encounter an emergency? Are you serious?
Let’s see an example of CPS taking kids without a court oder and without the cops.
If it is so obvious then you shouldn’t have a problem coming up with a cite. Any rule, regulation, or law that requires that CPS call the police before seizing a child on an emergency basis.
I can’t be assed.
In a local article, the alleged perp cellphoned somebody after stabbing the mom.
Somebody else is involved, & those kids are quite possibly in a great deal of physical danger. If the mom refused to take precautions, this may have been done to protect the kids from extraordinary risk.
This from the article cited in the OP:
Joel Siskovic, an FBI special agent in the Memphis division, said he could not say why the children were put into state custody. “As of now, there’s no indication that there’s an ongoing threat to the family,” he said.
I say that a person’s and his/her minor children’s right to privacy should trump the “right to know” of a bunch of nosy drama queens. And, honestly, it surprises me that someone would think otherwise.
She likely cannot, not without facing contempt of court charges. And since the judge will be the ultimate decider of whether or not her children will be returned, getting on the judge’s bad side by violating the gag rule that’s imposed in these cases will not be in her best interests or conducive toward the reunion of her family.