Former Waltham couple say overzealous child protective service workers need restraint
When our 3-month old son awoke one night, his little body was radiating with the heat of a high fever — more than 103 degrees. So we took him to the hospital. What followed was an aggressive investigation that coalesced into a bogus child abuse accusation and two social workers from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) seizing our screaming children from their beds in the middle of the night.
When we rushed our infant son, Cal, to the emergency room, a chest X-ray revealed a small, healed fracture on his rib cage. We had no idea how it happened, but the hospital workers determined it to be the result of trauma, suggestive of abuse.
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A gamut of tests was ordered to turn up any other evidence of abuse. Blood tests, MRIs, a full skeletal exam all came back clear. Our pediatrician confirmed we had attended every wellness visit and never gave any cause for concern.
Nevertheless, social workers from the hospital and the DCF remained suspicious. They conducted interrogations of us and of our 3-year-old son with accusatory and demeaning questions.
Yet beyond the single unexplained injury, there was no further evidence to corroborate any suspicions of guilt. And eventually, we were all allowed to return home, pursuant to our agreement to abide by a DCF-mandated safety plan. We consented despite our innocence, shudderingly relieved to be home with our two boys.
But the following night, the situation escalated without warning. Two DCF employees, accompanied by police, appeared at our door in Waltham at 1 a.m. to take our children into state custody. When we requested a warrant, they said they didn’t need one. We asked for paperwork of any kind. They said they didn’t need that either.
This is disturbing. Despite foundational constitutional protections, child protection departments throughout the nation claim that they can appear on your doorstep in the dead of night with armed law officers and demand your children without any sort of court documentation whatsoever.
We argued. We reasoned. We begged. And when violence was threatened, we woke our two beautiful boys and buckled them into a stranger’s car. We can never forget our 3-year-old’s screams as the door slammed shut and they drove away. Up to this point, nothing about our situation was lucky. It was cruel.
But the rest of our story is not all bad. We spent the next day calling the department’s emergency hotline to get the children’s grandparents approved as guardians. It was pushed through. Lucky us. We found an excellent lawyer to represent us at the 72-hour custody hearing, which we were able to push back several weeks to prepare. Tens of thousands of dollars later, we were awarded conditional custody. After a few months more of intrusive investigations by a barrage of state officials, we won full custody. To achieve that outcome that quickly was exceedingly lucky.
About 300,000 children are forcibly removed from their parents yearly in the U.S. By their own progress report, DCF admits that about five children under the age of 5 are taken from their families every day in Massachusetts. These kids will spend an average of 301.4 days away from home. Their parents are generally poorer and less resourced than we were. Their visitation is usually something close to one hour a week in a dirty conference room — a combined four days a year.
Since going public with our story, we’ve heard from more than 100 of these families. Many are in the system based on evidence as flimsy as ours. Many more are simply poor — they struggle to afford coats or food or adequate housing for their kids. Child abuse or neglect accusations are often the result of combined bad luck and societal failure to address poverty and racial discrimination.
To be sure, there are serious cases of child abuse and neglect that require intervention. But separating families can never address conditions of poverty or inequality. It ought to be a last resort, enacted only after a clear accumulation of evidence is presented to a neutral judge who issues a legal warrant.
In an effort to ensure parents these basic constitutional protections, we’re working with Pacific Legal Foundation to sue the city and the public officers who unlawfully seized our children. Because parents like us shouldn't have to be lucky to get their kids back. Our kids never should have been taken.
Sarah Perkins and Joshua Sabey are married writers and filmmakers living in Idaho with their two boys. They previously resided in Waltham, where Sarah was pursuing a doctorate degree.
This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Former Waltham couple say children were unlawfully seized
