The Pasadena Weekly has been reporting on a rather unnerving foster care story involving a troubled former prostitute named Mary O’Connor and her young son and daughter, 17-month old, Eamon, and 3-month-old, Maureen.
In Part One of this story, O’Connor had just gone into hiding in a safe house for battered women to avoid surrendering baby girl, Maureen, to DCFS.
Admittedly Mary is not the most stellar of moms, as reporter Carl Kozlowski describes her. But she is also plucky, according to the story, and wants to do what is required of her to be reunited with both her kids.
Here are some clips:
…..O’Connor hasn’t seen Eamon in more than 4½ months and lives in fear that he may soon forget who she is altogether, as DCFS officials have placed him in an adoptive placement home as preparation for letting a married couple of UCLA graduates adopt him. Meanwhile, O’Connor is hiding from the DCFS and police, keeping Maureen with her in defiance of a court order to hand over the infant or lose all parental rights completely.
If she is found, not only would she lose custody of the infant but also face jail time. What is most perplexing about the DCFS decision-making process is why O’Connor’s parents — her mother is a graduate of the elite University of Chicago and her father served in the military before launching a long career as a policeman — are not being given the option that normally exists in these cases, to adopt their grandchildren themselves.
[SNIP]If she loses the right to reunite with Eamon, however, it could trigger a process that would terminate all her parental rights to both children within two months.
And then there’s Part 2, in which Mary tries to flee with her daughter, but is apprehended and baby Maureen is taken away as two Pasadena Weekly reporters—André Coleman and Carl Kozlowski—look on with undisguised alarm.
Read the harrowing tale in full.
I should stipulate here that I have talked to no one involved with this story, so I cannot entirely judge O’Connor’s plight. However, one thing that both Pas Weekly reporters have emphasized is that O’Connor has two able bodied and seemingly upstanding parents living in Illinois who have petitioned the court for custody of the two kids, but DCFS has turned them down, according to court documents. Instead, 17-month-old Eamon is to be readied for adoption by that nice couple of married UCLA grads.
And, while is no doubt true that the UCLA grads can give Eamon far more in the way of opportunities than Mary O’Connor likely ever can, let us hope we are not yet parceling out other people’s children on that basis.
This story is far from over, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, listen to Margaret Prescod on KPFK as she talks to mothers who are trying unsuccessfully to get their kids back from DCFS.
It gets one’s attention.
PS: Thank you to Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform for flagging this story.
This story resonates with the stories I have been listening to for the past 15 years from mothers and fathers and grandparents across the country fighting the same battle. Why are we doing this to our families in this country? Who is behind this vicious scheme? And when are we going to put a stop to it? As usual, child services is doing it the hard way. Instead of helping this Mother build a better life for herself and her two children, with love and compassion, they shatter the family, breaking the bond between mother and child, wreaking the usual havoc and collecting as much in matching funds as they can. As for kinship care in this case, the grandparents might want to consider relocating to Los Angeles temporarily. This really demonstrates the divide between the affluent and the poor as do most of the cases that I’m familiar with. Even the author of this article shows that bias when she makes the claim, “while it is no doubt true that the UCLA grads can give Eamon far more in the way of opportunities than Mary O’Connor likely ever can …” Don’t be so sure of that Celeste. I’ve seen far more screwed-up, neurotic kids coming out of the upper class than the lower class by far. The fact is that there are many, many inexpensive ways to give low-income and poor children enriching experiences, from trips to museums and libraries, the ocean, the mountains, art and dance classes, sports, and on and on. A lot of these activities are low cost or free for qualifying families. A college degree does not make you a better parent any more than being wealthy makes you a better parent. In fact, often times, being wealthy means that your children will spend more time in daycare or with a nanny than with their family. So, let’s not even go there. It’s better to focus on whether the children are safe and healthy and happy with their family. I think in this case the children were all of those things. With a little help here and there this mother could easily build a better life. In a decent and compassionate world that is what we would help her to do. Unfortunately, we have chosen to create this monstrous industry dedicated to harvesting as many children as it can to maximize it’s profits, children and families be damned. I was researching documentaries on this subject last night and in every interview with foster children aging out of the system, their struggle to cope with life was evident. Every adopted child I have ever listened to, even those who were adopted by wonderful, loving people, struggle with the fact that they were separated from their birth parents. There is a primal, human need to be with our biological families and yet those who work in the child abuse industry have developed a cold, clinical, almost insect-like approach to their fellow man. In this child-saving culture it’s not people who matter anymore. It’s all about the money and some people will do anything for money.
jholderbaum, I agree with you entirely on the adoptive parents (and the rest). It can be problematic enough when the birth parent willingly gives up a baby—(although I know of many situations where the kid has been just fine—more than fine— especially with so-called “open adoptions,” if it is handled by the adults with emotional clarity).
But what if, as in this case, a child is taken from a mother who wants her child and is trying to hit the marks to keep him, what are the adoptive parents going to tell that kid about his mother that won’t do awful damage? Also, what can the adoptive parents be thinking to agree to this arrangement? Are they simply being willfully ignorant and choosing not to know that there are capable grandparents waiting in the wings? Or are they simply so sure of there class superiority that they think what they are doing is morally fine and dandy?
One wonders.
That would be an excellent question to ask the adoptive parents. Are they being told by child services point blank that this child is available for adoption before the mother’s even been offered a caseplan or had her rights terminated? I was browsing through this: http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/cps/cps.pdf and clearly there is emphasis on keeping children with their families and treating parents with dignity and respect. I don’t see that happening in this case or most other cases for that matter. The rules in this manual and laws of the land are very clear on what child services can and cannot do, but the practices employed by those working in child services don’t adhere to the rules and laws. They are operating outside of the law, engaging in criminal activity, in my opinion, and the law should crack down on the criminal activity but they almost never do. It’s been like this for as long as I can remember. It’s a culture that the public has become so accustomed to that they don’t question it. I think most people in this country just want to believe that everything is being taken care of as it should be. That every parent in family court has committed the crime of child abuse. Most people don’t even realize that there is a difference between criminal court and family court. Ignorance abounds, law are broken, people’s lives are shattered, children are destroyed and life goes on. It’s so tragic. So disheartening. I, along with many others, do my part to educate people and alert politicians and have been since the late ’90s but nothing changes. I’m not giving up. I’m disappointed that people don’t understand what’s really going on but I also understand how much information is being suppressed under the veil of confidentiality. I await the day when the family court system is open to the press and public. Change takes time. I’ll never stop trying to change it.
“May WE THE PEOPLE, Remember GOD, “et.al.”, and the R.I.C.O. Act As WE ACCUSE DCFS/CPS et.al.”
Kind Compassionate and Innocent Parent & Child,
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GOOGLED:
NOTE: In the United States (US), the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a federal law enacted to give extended penalties in the prosecution of organized criminal acts. The RICO Act is codified as Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the US Code, which deals with federal crimes and criminal procedure. Although it was intended to be used for the Mafia and others engaged in organized crime, RICO has been used to prosecute all sorts of criminal activity since its inception.
The RICO Act was created as part of the Organized Crime Control Act. As a product of two sets of Congressional hearings that took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the act’s main focus was on prohibitive measures on gambling organizations. Sponsored by US Senator John L. McClellan, President Richard Nixon signed it into law on 15 October 1970.
End Google
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Let’s remember (so as to not endlessly spin our wheels in complaining about the sole criminal seemingly acting alone, e.g. a CPS Department)this travesty, outrage, crime, paradox, lie, and tragedy we speak of as CPS / DCFS/ Child Welfare/ et.al. is nothing less than outright punishable Raqueteering.
We as the plaintiff public must bring to justice the defendants who make up such criminal acts on innocent loving falsely accused parents, and that would be Defendant: CPS ET. AL.
That is we must know that no criminal acts alone and neither does CPS/DCFS/Children Court/Child Welfare/Dependency Court/Family Court /Police/Medical/Foster/Adoptive/Politicians/Judges/Lawyers/County Counsel/ Public Counsel/ Public Defenders/….et. al. the list goes on….
The End Users/Abusers in this chain are not Parents of the child who are suspected /falsely accused/innocent of Child Abuse. Rather, it is the Foster Care Abusers/DCFS Abusers/Adoptive Harvesting Abusers/ Vindictive Divorced Former Spouses / abusers of the “tattle tail-type system of accusing through CPS to harm someone hated by the accuser where no evidence of child abuse is apparent or actually taking place” etc. ET.AL.
Let us insist on “ET. AL.”, and that we always use this suffix to really get to the root of who we accuse, as “DCFS et. al.” uses as its main objective along with money are that it instills FEAR. One of the most important of the 7 requirements needed to file a R.I.C.O. lawsuit against suspected raqueteering, simply, FEAR, and not necessarily $ Money.
This according to many experts and an expert (as we have become by necessity due to CPS et.al. criminal invasion and declaration of war on our lives and children) in fighting and beating CPS et.al. a post by Ramona Mayon on her Beat CPS website and Museum of the Broken-hearted Family at http://ramonamayon.com/beatcps/. All our efforts may assist one to further confirm and make a civil claim to the likes of what we all may theorize or put to the legal test what we relay. We can’t lose to try. Other online web sites we must unite on in addition to this fabulous blog herein (WitnesLA) might be:
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org (bringing forth and succeeding at bold legislation protecting children’s rights to their fathers and visa versa and more and more like FIGHTCPS.COM AND MORE …LET’S KEEP THEM COMING STRONG AND SUPPORTING THEM PLEASE….WE ARE DOING GREAT BY SPEAKING UP BUT LET’S TAKE IT FURTHER BRAVE KIND FRIENDS!!!
These are great monikers but let us be the next step to further our cause effectively and be united to make CPS et. al. totally and completely accountable and held criminally liable for the damage and the wrath of carnage upon our children and ourselves thus far and to prevent any more insane squashing of fragile, vulnerable and innocent humanity remaining on our planet. Before we succumb to the destitute decomposition they , et.al. would rater that we turn into before rising up against such a goliath with our tiniest of David breaths and rock sling shots.
We are speaking to and through GOD as all Unnamable Highest of Powers through our innocence (however falsely accused by a world), and hopefully not upon deaf ears, as we are not yet, though it sometimes seems we are, in The Valley Of Dry Bones. (Ezekiel 37:1-3).
Kind friends, let us Expand our minds, awareness, and power as citizens to this and we will start to be able to CONSCIOUSLY use the key of true justice “the enemy is the remedy” let us “use the same and better laws that they use/abuse”. We have to use THE ONLY OPTION AND THE BIGGEST OF ACCUSATIONS AND Claims such as raqueteering against the whole CPS et. al. in order to ever make any head way. EVER!
That way we implicate all (et.al.) into the law suit and get answers and changes and criminal charges and jail time as the opposite to the CPS et.al.”anonymoty, confidentiality, and the like of immunity and other protective measures that these raqueteers use in the guise of protecting the child’s identity”.
Follow the chain through all your DCFS / Family / Dependency Court / Public appointed counsel to see the “ET AL” players even appellate projects such as California Appellate Project Los Angeles (Mr. Jay M. Kohorn Director of CAP-LA, above, is the spouse of Judge Daniel Ezekiel Zeke Zeidler who judges Children’s Court / Dependency Cases that are sent to CAP-LA so they can assign ineffective public appeals counsel to defendants found guilty by Zeidler. That equals conflict of interest at least and raqueteering at best.
Such examples in “CPS / Los Angeles County DCFS et. al.”are riddled with conflicts of interest similar to Los Angeles Dependency Court Inc. supplying public counsel to the indingent / empoverished falsely accused of child abuse in this raquet and document it. Such public counsel in the above example are all having lunch with Zeidler to keep their jobs they must keep the status quo of Los Angeles County DCFS et.al. “Raqueteers” business that is fraudulent misrepresentation for their assigned client defendants so as to not defend them effectively and so forth and so on “raqueteering”.
It all must be part of a formal accusation of RICO ACT and be judged in a fair court of law for it all to change for DCFS / CPS et. al. to change. Yet, it is clear yet misinformed for us to be misguided and bamboozled by the enemy of sorts to think that it seems to start and end with just DPS or DCFS. But that is only because that is where we start getting involved and from a level of ignorance slowly become educated to futile extreme, and we get, along with our children (falsely claimed to be a victim-robbed of their innocence) tortured, scared, fearful, victimized, silenced, pissed-off, robbed of not only our child but our livelihood and raqueteered upon of everything and our complete identity and blinded to the fact that we are barking up the wrong tree. , And, of course, that is exactly what they “The Raqueteering et.al. Collective in Child Welfare” want, as they laugh at us thinking we will never figure it out. – yet now we can bring them to justice only because we can and we must. As this injustice / human rights violation and self evident and most punishable of genocidal acts upon humans by humans , and conspiracy to say the least, has gone on far too long .
We must indeed be on the verge of making it come to a complete screeching halt just as civil rights, and human rights join to effect global change. Now is the ripest of times so let us not despair.
Kind friends in solidarity to BEAT this monster “cps ET AL.”, let’s wake up and stand up to, not only, DCFS / CPS et.al., but also the much bigger “Raqueteering” picture.
Thus, let us not forget “et. al.” and name them as “Whomever e.g. DCFS…..et.al.” is whenever we want to pursue justice in its most deep and profound and EFFECTIVE sense.
Let’s wish ourselves a lot of luck and much needed intelligence, compassion, love, and acknowledgement for all who truly are not part of the “et. al.” Raqueteers. Remember this as we fight for our children and win on their behalf, before we die and they grow up without us……and as we endlessly, ceaselessly, love them and stay connected with them every way we HUMANLY AND POSSIBLY can from NEAR OR FROM AFAR OR FROM BEYON, until they are returned to us, their loving, rightful, innocent, caring, compassionate and ONLY true protectors and true parents they will ever have or ever REALLY need.
IN PEACE & LOVE MAY WE UNITE ALWAYS AND PROSPER WITH OUR CHILDREN!