Source: Astrology & More
A police investigation into a call alleging abuse was handled in the normal and fairminded manner. NOT! I think what typically happens is that the police would go to the house in question, talk to the person who made the phone call and probably arrest the accused, and possibly also the alleged victim (hey, it happens all the time).
But this case is a little more complicated due to the community’s religious isolation and practice of polygamy, which would make it difficult possibly to have a couple of armed forces go in and investigate through normal procedure. So they took the obvious route. Armed with guns and tanks they rounded up ALL the 465 children and their mothers and put them in a city stadium.
A week or so later, the mothers had to leave their children behind so that dna testing could begin on all the children (and parents as well), with the threat that since could take weeks or even months, the children would have to be put in foster homes. An entire village had their children forcibly removed and the sheltered children now losing their last thread of security with being together, now delegated to strangers.
“The children were first placed in a cramped shelter with cots and cribs lined up side by side, then they were transferred to a sports facility where they were removed from their mothers.
More than two dozen of the teenage boys who had done nothing wrong were then shipped 400 miles away to a ranch for troubled teens where they will not only be separated from their families, but they will undoubtedly be exposed to antisocial and delinquent youth. The director of the ranch said that mixing the delinquent teens with the other boys is “going to be difficult.”
What has become the largest custody case in U.S. history could end up being a mistake of epic proportions, even if some cases of abuse or neglect are substantiated.
While I have no idea exactly what has or has not happened in that compound, I am reasonably certain that the state’s recent actions have likely traumatized nearly all of these children.
There is little doubt that being taken away from your home, separated from your parents, jammed into rooms where you are cared for by strangers, and even sent hundreds of miles away to live among behaviorally disordered youth is all horrifying.
Testifying at the hearing, an expert on childhood trauma, Dr. Bruce Perry, wisely said that traditional foster care would be “destructive” to these children.” Dave Verhaagen, Ph.D., APBB, is a managing partner of Southeast Psychological Services in Charlotte and the author or co-author of five books, including “Parenting the Millennial Generation.”
Is this the only way?
