The allegations against L.B., made by an anonymous caller at 4:45 a.m. that day, were false. These included that she was a stripper (she worked at a home for people with disabilities); that she used drugs (none were found, and a drug test was negative for all substances); and that an abusive man lived with her and that she owned “machine guns” (after an exhaustive search and interrogation, both claims were deemed baseless).
In fact, L.B. has never been found to have committed any type of child maltreatment, ACS and court records show.
Yet the anonymous caller, whom L.B. believes to be a former acquaintance with a grudge, has continued to dial in to New York’s state child welfare hotline. Each time, this person or possibly people make outlandish, often already-disproven claims about her, seeming to know that doing so will automatically trigger a government intrusion into her domestic life.
And ACS obliges: Over the past three years, the agency either has inspected her home or examined and questioned her son at school more than two dozen times. Caseworkers have sought a warrant for only three of these searches, most recently in August. All of those requests have been rejected by judges, according to court records.
It’s horrible what a determined harasser can get away with due to bureaucracy and a simple lack of looking before they leap when it comes to government agencies and police.
And they almost never get caught. If they do get caught, there’s often no legal recourse because the laws in this country regarding harassing others are absolute dogshit.
Canada is better in some ways … although we have a lot of room for improvement. Provincial gov’ts set their own standards and rules, but in the province where I was a CFS investigator we had access to back files on individuals that would be checked as soon as a call came in.
We also weren’t allowed to check cupboards because simply being poor is NOT a valid reason to take kids away.
It’s crazy here. A bully at my daughter’s middle school doxxed her on Discord and kept making prank phone calls. The school wouldn’t do anything and there’s basically nothing legally we could do about it either. The phone calls came from a spoofed number, meaning we couldn’t prove who was making them, and apparently no one gets prosecuted for doxxing since no one knows what laws it breaks, so it’s basically legal.
We pulled her out of school because of the bullying in general, and thankfully that girl stopped harassing when my daughter left school. I don’t know what we would do if she had kept it up.
Ugh. I can’t imagine what it’s like raising kids now. I’m an angry person under the best of circumstances let alone someone threatening my child.
I’m glad you were able to find a solution, although it sucks your daughter had to be the one that changed.
Thanks. Online school will be better for her anyway. She has really bad social anxiety and being in big public school crowds and classrooms full of rowdy kids was always hard for her. The excessive bullying was the thing that broke her and made us pull her out. I had to quit my job to oversee her online schoolwork, but she’s more important than my job and we’ve survived on a single income before.
People might say “oh that will make her anxiety worse.”
I can say, without hesitation, that going to public places and staying in public school did absolutely fuck all to help my anxiety of crowds.
Exposure therapy only works if you get consistent good feedback, and school is not the place where that happens.
Her anxiety is really bad. We went to a goodbye party for a friend and there were about 20 people there, and she didn’t want to stay because the kitchen had too many people in it.
Man, I’ve literally done that.
Christmas parties at my grandparents house usually meant spending the entire day in the basement because there were too many people. For me It’s usually not a number of people thing, but how many people are in a room relative to its size.
I do want to give you some good news though. Despite my persistent anxiety, I have recently discovered that it has made me incredibly resilient to sudden stressors I wasn’t anxious of prior. I would not be surprised if your daughter builds the same resilience either. It won’t be easy, nor intentional, but it is a small gift from it.
I’m like that too and until recently I never knew why. Most of the time I was able to control it, but now that I’m in my 60’s I just don’t have the strength or desire to anymore.
If you haven’t already you may want to check out ADHD in girls, as that’s what I was diagnosed with 2 years ago.
Reading this makes me so fucking angry. It baffles me how often bullies get away with shit, and even more how their own parents completely lack any form of empathy towards their kid’s victim and will simply refuse to believe their “little angel” is a fucking gremlin. But the bully gets hit back just once, and suddenly the victim gets demonised. Blegh. I hate it so much.
I hope your kid is doing better now.
She’s healing, but it will be a long time before she’s better.
I wish her, and you as well, the best.
Thank you!
I hate to say it but… you hit the bully back. I was bullied in school, and that was the only thing that made a bully stop. Of course, don’t pound them into the ground, and do it when the teachers aren’t looking.
That was advice I got from a teacher, and it changed my life. Before, I’d gone to a teacher when I was bullied. I tried to ignore the bully (he hit me in the head with a rock for ignoring him). I tried asking the bully to stop.
Then one day my science teacher said, ‘sometimes, you have to hit back’.
She’s really not confrontational. And this is all mental bullying rather than physical bullying. Punching the kid who doxxed you would just get you in trouble.
Only if you get caught.
Punching the kid would get both kids in trouble actually. Punch the bully in the face and take the detention every time, they will stop.
She’s a kid who never, ever wants to get in trouble. She will cry if she gets any sort of school punishment and she’s even cried when I’ve done very minor things like raise my voice a little when she did something she shouldn’t have done. She’s just extremely sensitive. I can’t imagine her punching anyone. Also, she has no upper body strength. None. She can barely push open doors in stores and restaurants. And trying to get her to exercise is a fool’s errand.
And this may lead to all sorts of bad stuff. Adults, and I mean school officials and teachers, should do something with a bully, not that they always do and some even don’t want to admit that they should.
As someone who was bullied as a kid, I can say with confidence that they don’t. The best I ever got was the teacher asking them nicely to stop.
Drugs were also reported which would be reason to search cupboards. Though a 911 report alone shouldn’t be enough to get a warrant .
CFS workers shouldn’t be looking for drugs. That’s the cop’s job.
Is simply having/taking drugs even child endangerment? Sure, the stereotype of a drug addict is someone wildly neglecting their kids, but I can totally imagine ways that someone could use drugs while still being a good parent. It’s not like every drug user is an addict. Drugs aren’t all the “pass out while your kids go hungry” type either (stimulants like cocaine are basically the exact opposite of that).
The mere existence of drugs shouldn’t mean anything.
Each state has it’s own rules, but the general rule is misusing alcohol or drugs that causes neglect of the child’s needs.
The fact is just about every parent could be accused of that just by having a family BBQ with crazy Uncle Bill who likes to have a few too many. Technically that falls under neglect.
how is this due to bureaucracy? you think even less oversight and regulation is the answer? bureaucracy is the exact thing that would prevent things like this.
I guess by ‘bureaucracy,’ I meant a government that is so bogged down with these cases that they cut corners and don’t pay attention to case histories. Probably hiring more people rather than more regulation and oversight would be the best thing to do.
sometimes you get killed in your sleep
I had an Internet stalker for a time who was determined to report me to the police for crimes I committed against children. Her proof? God told her. Yes, she literally thought that God spoke to her and told her who was abusing kids.
It was very stressful, but thankfully, apart from harassing me online, she never successfully convinced any police department to arrest me. I guess the police file their “God told me he’s a criminal” reports in “the special filing location” (aka the trash).
Still, it’s scary to think what grief she could use caused me had she been able to hide her crazy a bit better. (I’ve greatly summarized this tale for this post. The full tale takes place over years, involves multiple people including Boy George and the CEO of Firefox, a “worldwide hacking organization,” and more.)
You’d think the police would investigate the person making the claims for wasting police time…
They would only be forced to if she filed a lawsuit against the anonymous caller. People have done that before.
in my experience those parents usually are Mentally abusing their family
neighbors are just trying thdir best to help. Even by lying 🤥
“Dang crazy lady next doot who yells at her children all day is SOBER wow” must have been the neighbors thought 💭
Quite possible, but I’ve also seen genuine bullying this way too.
If that was somehow the case, the neighbor sucks at what they’re trying to do.
Then you actually make a report for that instead of crying wolf.
They don’t care.
too lazy and/or too stupid
Would you risk it if a child is involved? I’m not saying your wrong. But it’s worth noting that they are there for the the thousands of children that are being abused. Which still happens and people brush anything under the carpet.
Risk what exactly in this case of more than two dozens of checks having been performed? Her file is probably thicker than a hand and some of ACS workers should know it by heart by this time.
You don’t want to hear it but there are those out there that can get through the system a shocking amount of times. But sure. Keep voting me down for answering the why that the OP asked.
Okay, demanding downvotes earns downvotes! It is written.
100% bet that GladiusB is the kind of person who uses CPS to harass other people, and thats why they are so hot and upset over people saying the system shouldnt be abused for personal vendetta and grudges.
I standby what I said. Lol
100 times out of a 100 they will check in on a child.
All the resources being wasted to harass a woman that is properly raising her child and has never had one negative thing found against her in the dozen+ investigations, are resources not going to actual victims, to save actually at risk children.
So YOU are risking childrens lives by encouraging and accepting the ridiculous harassment campaign against this one person.
No. I am a parent and understand the system. YOU don’t know anything other than being a Karen.
Ah yes, I am the doing the most reknown Karen thing of… saying people should stop being undeservingly harassed and abused.
You know, Like Karens are famous for doing.
You’re doing it me for understanding that they are checking in on a child and all I am saying is I understand why. So, yea. Pretty much a Karen.
In no form or way have I justified being harassed or the fuck twits behavior. I’m saying the child matters. You dense little neanderthal.
In no form or way have I justified being harassed or the fuck twits behavior.
You’re not justifying it, you’re just implying that someone who has cleared a dozen+ investigations must be a monster who is getting lucky and getting away with it.
I am in no way implying that. I am stating that I understand why they check on a child. Are you sure you are old enough to be on a keyboard? I’m getting strong 12 year old vibes here.
There is no single way to know that a child is safe without checking in on them. There is not a single person I have met in the system that would just be like “Oh. It’s just a prank.” I have personally been involved in it as a child and a parent. CPS does not just look at it and say Iit’s ok. It’s the 100th time". And once again, for the 6th time.
That is my only point.
If it was one call, I’d agree with you. Better to check it out and find out it was wrong than to not check it and miss abuse. Maybe this can excuse the second and third call as well. But when you get to the 24th time, maybe the agency should be questioning whether this is a person trying to use their agency to harass the person. (The CPS version of Swatting.)
They should refer this matter to the police and have them investigate who is making these calls. Not only were they harassing a family that they’ve checked multiple times, but they are both diverting resources away from actual abuse cases and are causing the abuse that they claim to want to stop.
I am all for getting the swatter. I am in no way justifying anything he is doing.
I am and have been saying I understand why CPS has to take every call seriously. If they have enough information to make it seem credible, they can’t put the child’s life in harms way.
That is all I have been saying since my first response.
Trust me, searching childrens bodies is actually traumatizing and is abuse.
When did I ever say search a child’s body?
Its in the article
Similar story in New York. A friend of mine worked for the 911 calling center. Someone would call and claim that there was a murder at the local Planned Parenthood office. By law, police/fire/EMS had to respond every time. The operators would tell the caller that they were diverting resources from actual emergencies, but they kept it up. iirc the DA’s office eventually got involved and they tracked the caller down.
I’m in New York also and a friend had to deal with a fake CPS call. There was another person (let’s call her B) who had an actual issue reported to CPS involving abuse and drug/alcohol abuse around young kids. CPS started to take the kids away from B.
Then my friend had a report filed against her. We’re pretty sure that the report was filed by B as revenge because B thought that my friend was the one who filed the report.
My friend complied with the search of her residence and showed that she wasn’t mistreating her kids in any way. Still, it was frightening because there was still a chance that CPS could walk out saying that they were taking her kids.
Link? I’d like to know what came of this asshole.
Someone is taking advantage of the fact nobody wants to be wrong on a child abuse call. You don’t want to be the person who says, let this go, we’ve checked her out twelve times and then something happen.
Not saying it’s right… just saying.
Then please explain to me why the fuck ACS is blocking laws that would require them to read the parents their constitutionally protected rights when conducting these “inspections” and also create a paper trail to stop false reporting and protect families from this sort of harassment.
They aren’t worried about whether or not they are right, they don’t actually want to protect children. They just want to protect their power.
I’m really struggling here, can anyone tell me how someone could ever possibly be radicalized against the state? It just doesn’t seem like something any normal person with even the smallest sense of morality would ever do.
ACS: Actually the Criminal State
ACS, DCFS, whatever the agency is called they are all fucking garbage. They are always politically motivated and always completely ineffectual at protecting children. Either doing things like this and harassing a parent and child due to shitty policy or not doing anything when children are being actively harmed, again due to shitty policy.
7-year-old son
They also had her lift up her son’s shirt so they could inspect his torso.
They observe her child’s unclothed stomach and thighs, and sometimes take pictures.
Insane human rights violation
It sounds like someone is abusing their power to make CP
examined and questioned her son
The ACS is the one abusing the child. Classic
So these government goons get to invade someone’s house, ignore their privacy, take pictures of their kids undressed, and claim “We’re protecting children!” They will fight to hold onto that power.
There is a proven need for the service. But it needs to be better regulated, NOT privatized and states should have rules limiting worker’s authority.
Better regulation is definity needed, in cases like this CPS themselves are practically the abusers.
Yup. They’re supposed to be there for the welfare of the child AND family, not to act as judge and jury with zero compassion.
But if that’s what their leadership (state and local) is teaching/telling them to do, it’s time for a new government.
For real, the repeated interviews could be traumatizing to that child.
While this story is appalling - it’s not a fight for power that’s going on here. It’s the justifiable fear that if they don’t investigate they will be the social worker on the front page of the news paper with the headline “Child abused/dies after this official fails to act”. As system based on good will and ‘better safe than sorry’ is being deliberately abused by the caller. There clearly need to be better mechanisms to prevent this, but it’s not a trivial circle to square.
Prevention isn’t feasible, but reaction certainly is. Caseworkers should be able to go after false complainants in extraordinary circumstances.
Good point. Aggravated false complaints feel like the should be a criminal matter
Since we are in agreement that the u justified complaints should be considered a criminal matter, we have to go back and look at the caseworker’s actions again.
In complying with the criminal demand to act, the caseworker is now either another victim of that criminal act, or the caseworker is complicit in perpetrating that act of harassment. In the former case, the caseworker should be making their own criminal complaint against the perpetrator. In the latter, the caseworker should be joining the perpetrator in jail.
The caseworker is effectively another victim here, for the reasons I set out in my previous comment. There needs to be both an organisational framework and legal framework to support them. You say “t he caseworker should be making their own criminal complaint against the perpetrator”. What existing law is being broken? I don’t know - do you? If the complaints are anonymous how does an individual caseworker bring a complaint? Even if they bring the complaint in the belief that that the report is vexatious- does that mean that they are free to ignore the complaint? Or do they actually still need to che k it out?
You don’t have to be the victim to file a criminal complaint. The laws being broken are harassment of the family, filing a false report, and probably a bunch of others.
“Qualified immunity” is the idea that so long as an agent of the state is acting responsibly and in good faith, they are immune from prosecution. Here, upon observing these criminal acts against the family, their responsibility is to make the criminal complaint. Failure to act should cost them their immunity and make them civilly and criminally liable for the harassment.
Edit: there is no such thing as an “anonymous” complaint. The 6th amendment guarantees the right to face one’s accuser. By accepting and acting on the accusation, the state violates the victim’s constitutional rights of it attempts to maintain the complainant’s anonymity.
" there is no such thing as an “anonymous” complaint. The 6th amendment guarantees the right to face one’s accuser. By accepting and acting on the accusation"
… so if someone phones up from an unkown number and says 'Mrs X is abusing her kid", nothing gets investigated?
It’s offensive to exaggerate like this, even just implied. Clearly they need to have some policy against harassment like this.
But when you’re considering this, acknowledge that it’s important for case workers to do things like inspecting the kids’ back and thighs for bruises. It’s important for case workers to be able to follow up on cases where they haven’t initially proven abuse.
The article says, “The agency finds a safety situation requiring removal of a child from a home in only 4% of these cases.” Only?!? You do realize how reluctant they are to remove kids. If they’re actually removing kids in 4% of cases, there’s gotta be significant abuse in at least 12% of cases, likely more.
CPS does an incredibly rough, difficult, and important job. The hate they get for it is insane. Rarely are things black and white. Just like you shouldn’t hate them blindly (or at all), you also shouldn’t support them unconditionally.
They have issues that need fixed, apparently in New York at least. We don’t need excessive hate and hyperbole to get that done.
If they’re actually removing kids in 4% of cases, there’s gotta be significant abuse in at least 12% of cases, likely more.
Do you have data to back this?
The article says, “The agency finds a safety situation requiring removal of a child from a home in only 4% of these cases.” Only?!? You do realize how reluctant they are to remove kids. If they’re actually removing kids in 4% of cases, there’s gotta be significant abuse in at least 12% of cases, likely more.
I’d go the other way on that one. “Contempt of caseworker” is a leading cause of removal action. I’d guess legitimate cases of significant abuse and neglect are probably closer to 1%.
