Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Unconstitutional Government Abuse

Breastfed Babies Kidnapped by CPS Because Parents were “Homeless” Living out of RV, Posted on May 5, 2015 Written by healthimpactnews.com
Amber is one of those free-spirited peo­ple who takes even incred­i­ble hard­ships and turns them into adven­tures, inspir­ing oth­ers in the process. When her young fam­ily wound up home­less, through no fault of their own, she and her hus­band Krishna Mehta made the best of it. Their chil­dren didn’t even know that they were home­less; they thought that they were hav­ing great adven­tures and mak­ing lots of friends.
This lat­est chap­ter in their saga, how­ever, is a night­mare, and the rain­bow is really hard to find in the storm that Child Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices has allegedly brought into their lives. Their chil­dren, ages 6, almost 2, and 9 months, have been seized by CPS and placed into 3 dif­fer­ent fos­ter homes. The two babies were still being breast­fed. Social ser­vices has gone so far as to accuse Amber of hav­ing a men­tal dis­or­der because she is “homeless.”
Their home­less­ness was not by choice. Last spring the fam­ily was liv­ing in a small town in Mis­souri. Krishna was work­ing, and Amber was a stay-at-home mom and child­birth doula. They were expect­ing baby Mira to make her appear­ance soon by mid-summer.

Emer­gency Trip to Ore­gon for Dying Mother

Then, they got a call that changed every­thing. Krishna’s mother’s can­cer had come back with a vengeance. The doc­tors gave her just weeks to live. Krishna, a dual Irish-American cit­i­zen, and Amber scram­bled to pull resources together to get to Ore­gon, hop­ing to see her before she died, and let her see the chil­dren. They drove cross-country, but arrived too late. She was gone.
The plan had been to stay at her house, have an unas­sisted home­birth, or “free­birth” in Ore­gon, and go back to the mid­west when they got back on their feet. But life didn’t work out that way. Mira was born peace­fully at the end of July, at home with her fam­ily. But shortly after that, they found them­selves with no place to live.

Mak­ing the Best of a Tough Situation

They sank what money they had left into an RV and made the best of their sit­u­a­tion. Amber says:
“We faced home­less­ness with all the courage and hope we could, believ­ing that we were strong enough to make it.”
Win­ter was com­ing on fast, and it was expected to be a cold one. An RV in Ore­gon was no place to live. They headed south, stop­ping in var­i­ous places, “help­ing oth­ers where we could,” says Amber, “which is more often than one might think, con­sid­er­ing all it often takes to HELP some­one is to CARE.”

Slab City

About the same time that the med­ical kid­nap­ping story of Erica May and Cleave Rengo’s home-­birthed, breast­fed babies went viral (orig­i­nal story here), at Thanks­giv­ing 2014, the Mehta’s began hav­ing trou­bles of their own in LA – mechan­i­cal trou­bles. They had heard of “Slab City,” billed both as one of the largest “home­less encamp­ments” in the coun­try, and a “free RV oasis” in the Cal­i­for­nia desert. Though they were hes­i­tant to take their fam­ily, they were at a point where they didn’t really know what else to do. When they received a warm invi­ta­tion from a friend who was a full-time “Slab­ber,” they accepted. They were pleas­antly sur­prised to be wel­comed into a com­mu­nity of sup­port, which included other fam­i­lies with children.
Accord­ing to an arti­cle about Slab City in the LA Times, ” this unlikely com­mu­nity appears to be grow­ing, per­haps because of the trou­bled economy.”
While the Mehtas lived in their RV, they shared resources and meals with oth­ers in the com­mu­nity, and fell into a rou­tine as they decided to basi­cally stay put for the win­ter. They some­times ven­tured into larger cities nearby in the effort to make money.
Amber reports that she was just begin­ning to feel that they would get ahead, and had even posted such on her Face­book page, when the storm clouds came rolling in again, and CPS entered their lives.

Storm Clouds Roll In

They had enjoyed lunch together at Doc’s mis­sion­ary camp, a place where “Doc” fed any­one who was hun­gry. It was Jan­u­ary 31, 2015. The babies were get­ting cranky in the after­noon, so Krishna offered to take Tara (20 months old) for a ride in the RV to help her go to sleep, some­thing the par­ents have found effec­tive in the past. Mean­while, Amber nursed the baby to sleep as she hung out by the hot springs, while watch­ing Sage play with friends.
As the after­noon wore on, Krishna didn’t come back, and Amber became con­cerned. By dusk, when he still wasn’t back, she got a friend to take her into town to see if, per­haps, Krishna had a flat tire or some­thing. By the time she got back with no word on their where­abouts, Slab res­i­dents told her that the police had come by look­ing for her. They said that her hus­band had been arrested and that Impe­r­ial County CPS had Tara.
Her mind reeled, try­ing to fig­ure out what pos­si­bly could have hap­pened. She called CPS, who told her they were send­ing police offi­cers to check on her and the kids, and that they needed to find “suit­able” shel­ter for the night, i.e. a hotel, and they would meet with her in the morning.
Offi­cers came, and were sat­is­fied that the chil­dren were safe. The RV had been impounded, with the keys to the mini­van inside, along with Amber’s purse. Slab­bers got together money for a hotel room for Amber for the night.
Tara did, indeed, fall asleep in her car seat ear­lier that after­noon. Krishna decided to park the RV at a Cir­cle K, and use the time to ask passersby for help with money. Police arrived, and they searched the RV.
Police told her the next day that he had been charged with dri­ving drunk, hav­ing an open con­tainer, mar­i­juana pos­ses­sion, and child endan­ger­ment. Amber was ques­tioned repeat­edly. She says that they told her they would get the RV out of impound and give her Tara back if she would sub­mit to a drug test. She reports that she had no prob­lem sub­mit­ting to such, as she doesn’t use drugs.
“It wasn’t until his release that we real­ized they had lied to me in an effort to get me to admit incrim­i­nat­ing details, because they didn’t actu­ally have enough evi­dence to hold our daugh­ter at all.”
Dur­ing the course of the 2 day inter­ro­ga­tion, CPS called the police to pick up the other two chil­dren, with­out a war­rant and with­out cause. Krishna was released after being held for 72 hours, with no charges being filed.
Krishna is dia­betic. He was taken to a hos­pi­tal for blood work after his arrest, and the tests report­edly showed no blood alco­hol con­tent, but very high blood sugar. Both hypo and hyper­glycemia of dia­betes can mimic drunk­en­ness. The “open con­tainer” was found in the recy­cling bags, which Krishna says were torn open as offi­cers searched the RV.
Police accused Krishna of child endan­ger­ment for not hav­ing Tara in a car seat. How­ever, there are report­edly pho­tos of her buck­led in the car seat dur­ing the search. When Amber later retrieved the RV from impound, the car seat was still snugly buck­led into the ran­sacked vehicle.
Due to a seri­ous back injury some time ago, Krishna was issued a med­ical mar­i­juana card in Ore­gon for “severe pain related to steel rods improp­erly placed in his fused spine,” so though he did use the drug occa­sion­ally, he was not actu­ally charged.

Judge Orders Chil­dren Returned

Three days after CPS took Tara, there was a deten­tion hear­ing. CPS report­edly told the judge that they had been unable to ascer­tain the safety of their camp, even though Amber says that she invited them to check it out. The judge found no grounds for the chil­dren being held, allegedly say­ing that Tara should have been returned the moment that her mother was found safely with the other chil­dren. CPS was ordered to pro­vide ser­vices for the fam­ily, and Krishna was ordered to drug test and enter treatment.

Night­mare Was Only Just Beginning

The social worker Noemi Silva took Sage in a police car with Offi­cer Vela back to Slab City, because the fam­ily van was one car seat short (it was still in the impounded RV). How­ever, they made a stop by the local sheriff’s office first and picked up a cou­ple more offi­cers. Offi­cer Vela report­edly told the Mehtas to head on to Slab City, saying, “No place for a child, and I’ll see to it.”
As they arrived at the site, Amber called Sage to her, and headed over to Doc’s mis­sion­ary camp for din­ner. The police told her that they had to inspect the site, and she asked if she was being detained. She kept walk­ing toward the camp­fire, and a woman there told her, “They are going to take your kids. Amber … RUN!”
The ter­ri­fied mother real­ized that she was right and handed a baby to each of two friends, and grabbed Sage’s hand. They fled into the night desert, search­ing for a place to hide. More police arrived, and they ran deeper into the desert, as her mind flashed to a scene in a book where a holo­caust sur­vivor was run­ning for her life to hide from the Nazis. “I couldn’t believe this was hap­pen­ing to me, to my chil­dren, to my fam­ily, to AMERICANS!”
They even­tu­ally found refuge in an old mil­i­tary bunker where a kind cou­ple took them in for the night. And they won­dered what hap­pened to Krishna, whom Amber had last seen argu­ing with the police. She later learned that he had been arrested.
“The video on the cell­phone showed that [their friend] Prax had been attacked, sat upon, choked and tased, sim­ply for voic­ing his opin­ion that it was wrong what they were doing to my family.”
She later received a phone call to come pick up Krishna from the hos­pi­tal. She found him walk­ing back toward Slab City. The ter­ri­fied and dev­as­tated fam­ily decided right then to load their fam­ily up and head to Ari­zona, “the clos­est state away from HERE!” They drove all night and through the next day.
The next day, they con­tacted their pub­lic defender, because they didn’t want CPS to do some­thing “crazy,” like putting an Amber alert out on them for “kid­nap­ping” their own chil­dren. He told them that there was going to be a hear­ing in a lit­tle bit, with­out them if they weren’t there. They told him how fright­ened they were, but they didn’t have time to get to court for the hear­ing. Over the next week they tried every day to get back in touch with the lawyer, but it was a month before they heard from him.
They decided that Col­orado was the best place for them to go next, because they had a friend who had offered them a guest house behind her home. Arrange­ments were made, and the RV and the rest of their belong­ings were recov­ered. They called the local CPS and Impe­r­ial County CPS, try­ing to set­tle things and let­ting them know that they had found shel­ter that the agency should approve of.
And for a while, it looked like things were going to be all right. Krishna got his Col­orado dri­vers’ license, and the fam­ily began to set­tle in.
“It all came crash­ing down on the morn­ing that we had an appoint­ment to get food stamps and med­ical for our fam­ily. A social worker came knock­ing along with a police offi­cer, and had war­rants to ARREST our children.”
CPS flew the chil­dren back to Impe­r­ial County, Cal­i­for­nia, on an air­plane, and Amber fol­lowed on the ground. Krishna stayed behind to work to get a home and things set up for his fam­ily. Amber was very con­cerned for his health, and she had to go fight for their children.
Less than 24 hours after Amber left, she received an urgent call that Krishna had been found at the bot­tom of the stairs, “not mak­ing any sense.” His blood sugar had plum­meted and he had fallen down the stairs, break­ing a ver­te­brae in his neck. Blood was pool­ing in his brain. He has some­what recov­ered now, but their fam­ily is still in great turmoil.

Chil­dren in Fos­ter Care, Sep­a­rated from Each Other

The chil­dren have been placed into 3 dif­fer­ent homes. Amber is allowed to visit them 3 times a week for an hour each visit, but she has been forced to stop breast­feed­ing, because she has been accused of hav­ing a pos­i­tive drug test. She reports that the hair fol­li­cle test shows 18 picograms (0.018 nanograms) for mar­i­juana. This tiny amount, she says, is from the second-hand smoke from her husband’s med­ical mar­i­juana use. (Note: most drug tests only report pos­i­tive if it is at least 50 nanograms for marijuana).
Amber has been ordered to undergo a psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion, and was told that “nor­mal peo­ple aren’t home­less.” How­ever, her only diag­no­sis was “adjust­ment dis­or­der,” due to her very real dif­fi­culty being a mom try­ing to adjust to the fact that her chil­dren have been taken away from her.
She was com­pelled to agree to vac­ci­nat­ing the girls or face charges of med­ical neglect. Though the girls were pre­vi­ously healthy before being taken into state cus­tody, they have had numer­ous pre­scrip­tions for antibi­otics and cough syrup, and were abruptly weaned from breast­feed­ing. Tara is report­edly tak­ing this very hard and doesn’t under­stand why her par­ents have “aban­doned” her.
Sage under­stands that his par­ents have no choice in this. He has a his­tory of febrile seizures, but his mother learned long ago that she needed to imme­di­ately treat any fever in Sage. If it were allowed to rise, he could go into a seizure. That is exactly what has hap­pened to him in state cus­tody. Dur­ing one visit, she felt that he was very hot. She told the care­tak­ers that they needed to check his tem­per­a­ture and give him Tylenol or ibupro­fen to bring down the fever. His temp was 101.5, but they refused to treat him, say­ing they had to have a doctor’s order in order to give him any­thing. She the­o­ret­i­cally still retained med­ical rights over her children.
They accused her of over­re­act­ing. How­ever, as is often the case, her mother’s intu­ition and knowl­edge of her own child proved cor­rect. Finally, some­one took her seri­ously, and took him to the ER. He started seiz­ing in the wait­ing room. He wound up spend­ing 3 days in the hos­pi­tal. Sage begged his mommy to stay with him in the hos­pi­tal and the social work­ers told them that she could stay. How­ever, just as they were get­ting ready to go to sleep, they reneged, and she was forced to leave him there with strangers, in a place he wouldn’t even be if they had just given him Tylenol.
Since the chil­dren have been seized, the family’s RV has been approved as accept­able, but the chil­dren are still in custody.

What Hap­pens Next and How You Can Help

Their next hear­ing is on May 18 in Impe­r­ial County. They have been able to raise some funds to hire a pri­vate CPS attor­ney, Eve­lyn Cox, to rep­re­sent Krishna. Amber says Cox is “the high­est rec­om­mended lawyer in the state of Cal­i­for­nia for cases like this.”
Amber and Krishna are hope­ful, but scared. Even though they were home­less, they have always been a very close-knit, attachment-parenting fam­ily. Their chil­dren were always with them. The emo­tional toll of the last few months has been dev­as­tat­ing. Through all the dif­fi­cul­ties that Amber has faced in the past, she has remained strong. She is the one in her cir­cles who helps peo­ple to find the hope and the rain­bows in all the storms. Now, she is the one need­ing sup­port and encour­age­ment for her and her family.
Gov­er­nor Jerry Brown is the gov­er­nor of the state of Cal­i­for­nia. He may be reached at (916) 445‑2841, and con­tacted here. The Sen­a­tor for the dis­trict that Slab City is located in is Sen­a­tor Ben Hueso. He may be reached at (916) 651‑4040, and con­tacted here. Assem­bly mem­ber Eduardo Gar­cia rep­re­sents the dis­trict. He may be reached at (916) 319‑2056, or con­tacted here.

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