Hand over your children!
ACS tried to take my other kids, sez mom burying son
BY JOHN LAUINGER and JONATHAN LEMIREDAILY
NEWS WRITERS
Thursday, August 16th 2007, 4:00 AM
A Queens mother buried her 2-year-old son yesterday - and then battled child welfare workers to prevent them from taking custody of her other kids at the cemetery.
"How are they going to come and do this while I'm burying my baby?" cried Jacqueline Lopez, a mother of six, whose son Carlos Joel died last week in a fire. "This is disgusting, this is horrible. Couldn't they have waited a couple of days?"
Carlos was burned to death last Thursday in a fire accidentally ignited by his 6-year-old brother, Isaiah, who was playing with his mother's pink cigarette lighter in their Sunnyside apartment.
Isaiah and Lopez's 1-year-old twins were rescued from the blaze by their grandmother Carmen Ospina. Lopez, 29, was not home, officials said.
Lopez said social workers from the Children's Aid Society - which had placed Lopez's oldest child, a 13-year-old girl, in foster care several years ago - told the mom yesterday that workers from the city Administration for Children's Services were coming to the funeral to take her other kids.
"She told me they're coming to the cemetery to pick them up," said Lopez after the service at St. Theresa's Catholic Church in Sunnyside. "It was so disrespectful to my baby."
A friend of Lopez's called City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), who requested that the ACS not take action on the day of the funeral.
"Unless there's imminent danger to a child's safety, disturbing a funeral is outrageous behavior," Gioia said. "It's inexplicable."
The ACS would not confirm whether or not it was investigating the Lopez family. But a pair of ACS caseworkers were seen interviewing Lopez and Ospina last night.
Lopez, who is being housed in a motel by the Red Cross, said investigators told her they got an anonymous tip citing parental negligence from someone who had attended Carlos' wake.
"I'm trying to be strong for my kids; I don't want them to see me cry," said Lopez, who wept into the shoulder of her husband, Edwin Mendez, 45. "And now they want to put us through another pain by removing my kids. How dare they do that?"
"Once they take [kids] away from you, it's so hard to get them back," she said. "I can't live without my babies. I lost Carlos Joel and now they're trying to take my other ones from me."
jlemire@nydailynews.com
My reply to above author-
Dear Sirs;
Thank you for this article, it's high time the press shows how ACS operates.
This past month my lawyer filed on my behalf a lawsuit against ACS and the City for Malicious Prosecution and Negligent Misrepresentation, they destroyed my family six years ago and I have not been able to recover from it.
Unfortunately, I am not alone in my misery caused by this agency (ACS) and other child protective agencies across America. Every day they destroy numerous children's lives under the guise of "protection" when in fact it is the Title IV Federal funding they receive for legally kidnapping our children that is at the root of this "protective evil"
We the people have had enough; this weekend many victims of the system are Rallying at the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. to stop government intrusion into our family’s lives.
Please see link below for more information.
Bringing Children and Families Back Together Washington DC Rally August 18th 2007
Sincerely
Louise Uccio
917-806-8301
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Louise, this reminds me of a case I was involved in as an ACS worker. A young black married couple had two small children, one going on two, the other an infant. They went Christmas shopping (as I recall it was either Christmas eve or the day before) and left the older child with a neighbor.
The little baby who had been born with congenital problems died while the couple was shopping (the baby was in a store bought "snugglee" type carrier on the mother's back.)
http://www.toughtraveler.com/images/smilingbaby.jpg
The couple rushed to a hospital where the baby was declared dead. The doctor did not report any child abuse to CPS because she did not feel there was child abuse, but of course NYPD was called in to investigate.
NYPD contacted the "Instant Response coordinator" on duty at ACS (Ramon Vargas if my memory serves me well) and I was assigned to start a CPS investigation without a report having been taken by the proper NY State authorities. I spoke on the phone with the detective on the case. He told me that he did not suspect child abuse, though there would have to be a coroner's report. He told me that he had gone through the family's apartment and found nothing incriminating, though in his opinion the condition of the apartment was "deplorable". This was at around 2 in the morning. I spoke over the phone with the mother also. She was very tearful and told me of the baby's congenital disorder. She also told me that the police had "torn up" her apartment. The CPS report that ultimately was fabricated made no mention of the condition of the apartment, nor of the baby's congenital defect.
I also spoke to a uniform NYPD Sergeant who told me that the NY State Central Register had not taken the case! In other words there was no CPS case to investigate.
I was ordered to go to the home anyway in the company of supervisor Hani Makek who since has been promoted. We rang the apartment bell and the father came to the building lobby. It was around two twenty in the morning. He said that he did not want us to see his wife until a more decent hour. He said he would be happy to let us in at eight in the morning. He said he would not tell us what apartment the other child was in because he had not yet told the child of his sister's death, wasn't sure how to do it and also did not want us to wake up his neighbors.
Maradesa "Sunday" Adegbola, an ignorant Supervisor two, ordered me to get the police! (This would only be to intimidate or terrorize the family as there was no warrant or any other legal document, to my knowledge at the time not even a CPS report and the fathe had already declined to help us wake up his wife and neighbors.) I told Malek that it made no sense to call NYPD and he agreed. We went to the car and called Adegbola who was apopleptic with fury. I gave the phone to Malek who offered Adegbola that he would call NYPD but Adegbola told him to come back to the office with me (so much for an "emergency").
I got to speak with the doctor who had declared the infant dead and she told me that the baby carrier was one sold in stores, not makeshift, and she had seen other infants carried in the same kind of carrier. She told me that though she did not approve of carrying a baby on the back it was not a case of abuse.
Ultimately I was put on disciplinary charges for what I did and didn't do that morning and the supervisor on the scene got promoted. While we were at the apartment NYPD called the Central Register a second time, and this time the Central Register concocted (as they often do) a report aht tdid not reflect the police officer's words, in order that a CPS report exist. They wrote that the mother had been carrying the baby in a "backpack" (picture a bookbag for example.)
I told Adegbola that he would never had ordered me to get the cops had the family been a white family and he actually agreed with me.
He did send out another team to the home. They reported back that they had rung every apartment buzzer in the apartment building lobby (No problem, it was run down "section eight" type building with no whites living in it) and had gone to the family's apartment and banged on their door continually but got no response as if there was an emergency at around three in the morning. They asked ignorant Adegbola if they should call 911 and he told them not to.(I was charged in documents signed off on by Commissioner Mattingly and ACS attorney Michelle Weinstat with not calling 911 in an emergency.)
This is one and not the only instance I can recall of ACS insensitivity upon the death by other than abuse of a child and their tendency to make things up as they go along. That's why ACS must be stopped!
Eugene..
Your a good man, don't let what they do turn your stomach and give you ulcers..
I only wish that the public sees more of these kind's of stories before they are sucked into the money machine!
Unfortunatly I had no idea how bad things were, and my family was destroyed in 2001- by "The System"
Even though I have been cleared of all wrong doing since July 12 2006 I still have not seen my children!
What a wonderful system we have!
I just pray each and every one of those that are involved in the destruction of innocent families understand the personal pain they have caused so many of us- by having something similar happen to them!
Louise
Eugene,
Ironic that I came accross this article this morning ..
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA081607.5B.inspector.quits.2ea495e.html
The third paragraph states..
"Perry is killing the messenger. Mr. Flood did a great job of showing that HHS (health and human services) in Texas is a wreck. Now he's getting fired for telling the truth," said Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, Senate Health and Human Services Committee member.
Sound familiar?
Post a Comment