FightCPS does not advocate or condone violence or illiegal activities of any kind.
FightCPS is intended to help people learn enough about the law to be able to successfully defend themselves and their families against false accusations using legal documents and strategies that put parents in a stronger position when they go back to court.
Child Protective Services, CPS, has devastated and destroyed hundreds of thousands of families in America during the last thirty years leaving a trail of broken hearts, broken dreams, and shattered childhoods.
Rather than helping families, government agents have used unconstitutional laws in Juvenile Court to rip children away from their loving parents, break asunder God-given, natural, parent-child bonds, and adopt the children of the grieving out to others who profit financially with large monthly adoption subsidy payments.
Child Protective Services must be stopped! The law that started this, CAPTA, must be repealed. We must work tirelessly to inform the public of this very dangerous travesty of justice. We must keep faith knowing that if there is a God, there is an answer and a way to end this heartache.
Child Protective Services Agents - please come to your senses! Family destruction on false or trivial grounds is wrong, reprehensible, and inhumane.
Fosterers - be aware that for the money you get you are holding much-loved children away from their grieving families while the parents are forced to perform a service plan that is anything but a service to them. I call this hostage holding for the government. This is not kindness - to help misguided government agents destroy family relationships and break loving bonds.
CPS workers and fosterers - I ask that you now let the children of the innocent return to their homes where they are truly valued, adored, and loved by the parents God gave them.
Family rights are God-given rights. And they should not be ignored or postponed. Every moment these loving parents and children spend separated from one another is a torment beyond what anyone should ever have to bear.
It is unworthy of human dignity to allow this terrorism and torture of families to go on without saying something, speaking out, and trying to make a change.
Site mission: To provide information and support for families attacked by Child Protective Services and child welfare agents, especially those families facing false or trivial accusations of child abuse or neglect; and for researchers working to protect natural family rights.
From the inception of the FightCPS.Com site in October, 2000, I was aware of North Carolina CPS abuses and always have thought of North Carolina as one of the most corrupt states (for child welfare) in our country. This impression comes because there have been many North Carolina residents online complaining about child welfare injustice there, whereas for other states like North Dakota or West Virginia, you rarely meet anyone with a complaint.
For example, the Candace case: A five-year-old girl was ripped from her loving mother because mom couldn’t find a ride to go pick her up from Head Start on time one day. Candace was adopted out to a nurse practitioner who took her to Colorado for “rebirthing therapy”… which caused Candace’s death at the age of ten.
Now another ten year old child needs to be rescued from North Carolina’s child welfare industry. He belongs in the state of Texas and his father has court documents to prove it. But North Carolina not only won’t let go of Joshua William Smith, they seem to be hiding this child. The full story is on the Stop Corrupt DSS blog. Here’s the link: Where is Joshua William Smith?
The couple in this video said they became foster-adoptive parents so they could help needy children. But soon they were confronted with evidence that children are often not taken from their parents because of true abuse or neglect, but because CPS bureaucrats tend to over-react in order to get children into the foster care system. When a child is placed in foster care, the federal funding streams start, and that’s what CPS administrators want so they can strengthen their jobs and their departments with money from federal resources including the Social Security Fund.
I appreciate that the Gates family allowed their plight to be televised. The Central Index blacklists in every state should be declared unconstitutional. Too many people are listed - not on the basis of what they have done to harm children, but simply on the basis of CPS caseworker opinions. Most of the people listed on the Central Index blacklists have never been criminally charged or convicted of any kind of child abuse or neglect.
This video was posted to YouTube by Shanklinmike who posts videos about the Libertarian Party, individualism, & economic freedom. I recommend his videos to all of you. I just found this video this morning, and now I’m one of his subscribers!
C. Patience Summers spoke with District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra of Willacy County, Texas. He indicated that he is willing to prosecute corrupt CPS judges. She found that most CPS judges in her area have a conflict of interest. They are sitting on the boards of directors of foster and adoption agencies. This could influence them to terminate parental rights so that their agencies will have more children to adopt out.
Patience requests that all victims of CPS, past and present, in the state of Texas, contact her as soon as possible. Her phone number: (909) 567-2067.
There will be a rally at the Willacy County Courthouse on December 1, 2008. Participants are urged to bring along their families and friends to show the growing unrest in the American populous with regards to judicial corruption.
BE THERE ON DECEMBER 1, 2008
Willacy County Courthouse
190 North Third Street
Raymondville , TX 78580
A Nacogdoches, Texas CPS caseworker, Alvita Johnson, 50, was arrested in 2006 for abusing three foster children in her care. Charges against her included injury to a child and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The children involved were ages 10, 12, and 15 at the time.
Recently she was found guilty of two counts of injury to a child and three counts of aggravated assault. Here’s the sentence:
145TH DISTRICT COURT
The following people received probated sentences:
Alvita Johnson, injury to a child, six year in deferred probation, $5,000; injury to a child, six year in deferred probation, $5,000; aggravated assault, six year in deferred probation, $5,000; aggravated assault, six year in deferred probation, $5,000; aggravated assault, six year in deferred probation, $5,000.
Sources: Former CPS employee arrested for alleged abuse by Kyle Peveto, published in the Daily Sentinel on November 22, 2006. 11/01 On the record, published on Friday, October 31, 2008 also in the Daily Sentinel, a Nacogdoches, Texas newspaper.
Hannah Overton, 30, the Texas foster parent and Christian homeschooling mother of five convicted to life in prison without parole for the murder of a foster child, is asking for a new trial.
She was convicted in September 2007 because she allegedly forced a four year old, Andrew Burd, to drink a mixture of two cups water, salt, pepper, chili powder and Cajun spices as a punishment. Hannah’s version of this is different. She says the child requested the “Zatarain’s Seasoning” and she put it in water instead of on food because he had an overeating disorder. She says she did not force him to drink it as a punishment. Source: Free Hannah Overton Website.
While many more violent foster parents have gotten off with a mere hand-slap, this young woman was sentenced to life without parole even though she had no intention to kill the child. She reportedly panicked when she saw Andrew wasn’t breathing, and waited an hour and a half to call for medical assistance. This is what the prosecutor said made her responsible for Andrew’s death. Source: Woman Convicted In Foster Child’s Death Seeks New Trial published on November 7, 2008 at KWTX.com.
This case shows that foster parenting is a dangerous occupation. For years now I’ve warned people NOT to get involved with the foster care industry because of the risk of false accusations, and because of things like this where foster children die or are murdered, and there must be accountability.
One foster parent wrote on Sarah Walston’s blog:
“This story TERRIFIES me because I currently have 2 foster children living in my home, and now I’m forced to think ‘What IF this happens to ME?’ This story shows how easily some unfortunate twist of fate, can leave someone wrongfully convicted…”
There is a website created by Overton’s Christian supporters: Free Hannah Overton.
My opinion on this is that she got a much longer sentence than she deserved. Without a doubt, forcing a child to drink hot spices is a form of child abuse, and she deserved some prison time if she actually did that, but to put her away for life without parole is far too much time, especially for a young woman who is unlikely to be a danger to society if set free.
Another blog article, Suffer the Children, gives an opposing view, criticizing the “Free Hannah Overton” movement and pointing to perceived flaws in the thinking and writing of those seeking to help her.
Hannah’s aunt posted extensive information on her MySpace blog in which she said part of the conviction relied on a FALSE affidavit filed by a CPS social worker! See: The Wrongful Conviction of Hannah Overton.
What is your opinion? Should Hannah Overton be freed? Should her sentence (life without parole) be exchanged for something less harsh? Or do you think she got what she deserved?
Frustrating, how everyone knows that child predators seek out jobs where they can have access to young children, but still the foster care system gives unlimited access to people like this. Foster parent agencies are so desperate for new homes, they constantly advertise: “Foster Parents Needed”. I read it all the time in my news feeds, so I know the drive to recruit people is fierce.
Unfortunately there’s no totally effective way of screening out all perverts. That’s an important reason why CPS needs to cut way back on the number of children detained each year. If they detained only the children truly being physically abused in their homes, those with no extended family members to take them in, then the number of foster children would be much smaller, and the truly good foster homes could take them in.
But no… they just don’t see the light. They keep taking in kids until full to bursting. In Texas this year multiple news stories addressed the problem of excess foster children that foster homes rejected; they were sleeping in CPS offices and motel rooms! How quick would these pressured social workers be to unwittingly place those children with child predators quickly recruited to fill foster parent positions?
There are dozens of news stories about these perverts being caught. The ones that worry me more right now are the ones not being caught.
Mark D. Vogl was a foster parent in Jasper County, Missouri, from November 7, 2002 through August 31, 2004. That gave him almost two years to abuse children. A few days ago he was given two fifteen year prison sentences (to run concurrently) for two counts of first-degree statutory sodomy. The victim is an eleven-year-old boy placed in his foster home by CPS agents. Sorry to say, the CPS agents will probably never receive sentences or prison time for their negligence in placing the boy with Mark Vogl.
Investigators believe there are other victims in this case, but they agreed not to pursue those crimes because Mark Vogl pled guilty.
A nineteen-year-old soldier, Michael Vick, was arrested at the airport in Texas upon arriving home fom Iraq. His father, James Vick, 44, was arrested in May and is still in custody. Apparently two girls who used to live with the Vick family as foster children say the men sexually assaulted them, and law enforcement authorities believe them.
The sexual assaults allegedly took place at various times in 2003 and 2004. The girls were only eight and nine years old at that time.
This family must have been heavily invested in the foster care industry, as the authorities say they’re now interviewing more than fifty other foster children who lived with the family since the mid 1990’s.
It always astounds me when people come onto this site, say I’m not doing the right thing, and suggest some other thing I should be doing to help change the CPS system.
For example, today I checked the comments for this site and found a comment from Darrin who thinks I should be tracking down a man I’ve never met, whose name I don’t know, to get more information before posting something about a news article.
Sorry, Darrin. I don’t have time. Do it yourself if you think it needs to be done.
This reminds me that not long ago John told me I should focus my efforts on getting more funding for foster children. Yeah, right… like I would ever do that! Foster parents already get lots more than welfare recipients, and they keep complaining. Don’t get me started on that one! If John thinks that’s the answer to all CPS problems, then John should do something about it.
We all are led by our hearts, to do what we think is right.
Many times it isn’t easy for me to bear - which is why I’ve left the message board here in the loving hands of other advocates and activists who want to help counsel people going through CPS hell. That is what their hearts tell them to do, and I’m so grateful for anyone doing anything to help change this inhumane system of cruelty to families. I don’t need or want to be the center of attention here. I’m only doing what my heart led me to do seven years ago, and I know it isn’t right to stop doing it yet. So here I am, still, after all these years.
Which brings me to the point of this article, which is that we all should listen to our hearts and our consciences, and take whatever actions we feel appropriate for the highest good of all involved. If your heart tells you to advocate for families one-on-one, then do it. Don’t expect me to - as that’s not what my heart tells me to do. You do your thing and I’ll do my thing. And hopefully if we all work on doing our heart-inspired tasks, together we can make huge changes in the world.
One person can’t do it all. Don’t even try… this problem is way too big for that. But do your own small part, just as I’m doing my own small part. And don’t think that this site is the ultimate family rights site. If your heart is telling you to create another one, there’s a reason for that! Maybe it is the right thing to do! Don’t hold back. Everyone has talents and capacities that can be drawn upon to help fight CPS and make this world a safer, healthier place for families. Do your own small part and don’t worry about what others are doing, and don’t be like Darrin, Carla and John, and try to tell others what they should be doing. That’s not helpful at all.
If you’ve read this far, I thank you. And I want to tell you what I’ve been doing lately.
It may surprise some people like the three I just mentioned, but I don’t spend all my time working on this website. I hold down a part-time job in my community, and I own two small businesses that are barely profitable… but they keep me busy. I live in an extremely low-budget cabin in the Klamath National Forest, which I rent. I’m not a lawyer and currently don’t work in the legal profession at all. I have a boyfriend I dearly love who expects me to spend a huge part of my time with him. I’m a 55-year-old woman (boyfriend is 56) and I still have one child at home, plus four adult children. My youngest is almost 18 and so soon, for the first time in 35 years, I’ll have no minor children to take care of. Also I have no grandchildren which considering the work I do on this site, could be a divine blessing and protection.
For the last few days my home has been threatened by a forest fire. I live in far-northern California, in a small town called Happy Camp. I came home from my birthday trip to the coast on Saturday night to find that there was a forest fire blazing on the hill next to the forested hill I live on. One of my part-time small businesses is the Happy Camp News site which I’m grateful to say, is in the process of being sold so I won’t have to keep working on it. But this week I’ve been posting articles about the fire, doing interviews, etc. plus I had to remove all my valuables from my home and pack everything, because it seemed that evacuation was imminent. At this point the fire is less intense, however that could change again. So all this stuff is going on, plus I’m still going to work where our workload tripled because of the huge numbers of fire fighters present in our town at this time.
Then I came in here and saw messages from Darrin and Carla, and well, this article is the end result. I don’t need anyone telling me what to do with my time, or saying I’m not doing enough by providing this site, some simple legal information, and a message board for people to connect on. This is what my heart leads me to do, and I’m doing it.
I know that most of the people who come to this site appreciate what I’ve done here. I’m sorry I’m not able to do one-on-one counseling and legal help, but I really don’t have the time or stamina, and like I said, hearing the sad stories affects my heart, and it is nearly more than I can bear at times. I’m a very sensitive person and I love you all.
I don’t want you to stop writing about your heartaches here - because I want the people that matter to come here and read these things. I want CPS workers to stop by and read what we think of their tactics for destroying families. I want foster parents to know that many of the children they are hostage-holding for the government are taken unfairly from innocent parents. I want legislators to come here and realize the CPS system is horrible, unjust, and inhumane. I want them to know that they must be the ones to take the lead, by writing laws to end this system of cruelty in our country. I want lawyers to know that if they aren’t defending their CPS clients actively and aggressively, they are doing a disservice, and are (in my opinion) frauds to be taking on clients they can’t or won’t defend properly. I want them to have the heart to do what must be done in court to safeguard family rights.
Enough said. Thanks for reading, and I’ll post more sometime when I’ve got more time on my hands for publicizing the details of all the injustice CPS does to harm children and families. That seems to be my lifework, which my heart draws me to. I’m here for you as much as I can be, and wherever else I am, you know I’m totally on your side, hoping for all good things to happen in your lives.
This site map is under construction. I have about six hundred more pages to add. In the meantime if you want to find something on this site, try using the search box on the left side of this page.
This week I had guests on this website that are not sympathetic to our cause. John and Brooke, who post from Texas, seem to think they are God’s gift to Unfortunate Children … in other words, they are self-righteous foster parents. See the messages they contributed to this site at Texas: “The System Is Maxedâ€.
Normally I have no problem with having foster parents posting here at Fight CPS. Some foster parents are loving, kind, and truly on the side of parents who want to regain custody of their children. I appreciate that they care enough to come here and give advice to suffering parents and other natural family members.
John and Brooke did not fit that description. They apparently were here to insult and annoy the suffering people who this site was created to help. Some of their comments were inappropriate and unkind, and some of those are being held in the moderation queue because they are not appropriate for this site.
At first I didn’t know they were related though it was clear that John was backing up Brooke and railing against me, including a few rude comments along the way. I’d had enough of him when John finally declared, “I am not at all simpathetic [sic] to the people who complain about removal because I don’t know if they are truthful, I know that these parents will lie or tell only part of the story to gain simpathy [sic] from anyone that will listen.”
The people who come to this site - those for whom this site is intended - do not need to be insulted by being called liars.
In retrospect it is humorous to see that John is so unfamiliar with the concept of sympathy that he cannot even spell it right.
Because of John’s rude statement, I put his future comments on moderation by putting his Texas IP number in the comment moderation box in my blog administration panel.
I was surprised when I woke up the next day and found a comment from Brooke in my moderation queue! It was then that I noticed that Brooke and John were using the same IP number!
That day John finally admitted to being a foster parent receiving money from the state. It was as I’d suspected - he has his hands in the pockets of the system and so naturally is blind to anything that might be wrong with what he’s doing. He wrote, “I couldn’t really care less about the money I am financially secure without it.”
Does that qualify him to leave comments on this system where there are hundreds of suffering parents and family members seeking help every day, insulting everyone by calling them liars? I think not, and won’t tolerate it. So I decided that John and Brooke will not have any further comments published.
Brooke posted one more time - and I have not published it - her final comment remains in the moderation queue because it is an insult to another suffering parent who is trying to recover from heroin addiction. Like most people here, I’ve never tried heroin and never will, but I do not believe it is right to spew hatred and recriminations at people who are trying to recover from an addiction, as Brooke did in her final comment.
I honestly cannot understand why Brooke and John were so intent on posting here. They have no respect for the people who come to this site for help, and don’t have a clue as to why I started and maintain this site. They have their foster home money and some Unfortunate Children… and yes, I’m concerned about the children in their care. If this is how they respond to suffering people, those children may be receiving similar maltreatment at the hands of these self-righteous people.
The point of this story is in the title to the post. People who come to this site should be aware it is my intention to build suffering people up, not tear them down. Tearing them down is what CPS does. I’ve known for nearly twenty years that what CPS does is find people who are going through a rough spot in life, then the caseworkers kick them while they’re down, figuratively speaking, by destroying their families.
Here at Fight CPS we must do the opposite. When suffering people come here, we must give them hope, strengthen them, build them up, love them, care for them, understand them (we are all God’s children) . . . and give them tools to use to express themselves in court so that CPS workers aren’t the only ones going in with legal paperwork, prepared for court.
John and Brooke, be gone. We don’t need anyone telling people they have problems. Everyone who gets involved with CPS is aware already they’ve got a problem and/or made mistakes. They don’t need you stuffing your recriminations down their throats. God help the children you’re warehousing for the state.
…
* I know the exact city their IP number comes from but am concealing that information, for now.
Katie Wernecke, 14, was taken from her family by CPS two years ago, not because she was being abused or neglected, but because CPS agents and doctors didn’t agree with her parents’ decisions regarding her cancer treatment. At the age of 12 Katie, a resident of Agua Dulce, Texas, had Hodgkin’s disease. Her parents sought an alternative treatment for her. That right was denied to them.
CPS took Katie Wernecke from her family and forced her to undergo court ordered medical treatments. A judge allowed her to go home in November 2005, and though the family is grateful to have been reunited they believe their Constitutional Rights were violated. The lawsuit, filed by a Frisco, Texas attorney, is based on violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.
The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. CPS child detentions are considered a seizure. The Fourteenth Amendment protects property and legal rights, and ensures that citizens have due process rights.
Many people have sued CPS in Federal Courts based on the violation of these Constitutional Rights.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
“The system is maxed,” Patrick Crimmins said. “The system as designed, depending on your point of view, either cannot or will not absorb more children.”
Because foster care providers refuse to house hundreds of foster children, the children are forced to sleep in hotels or even in CPS offices.
Rather than admitting that far too many of the children in the state’s custody have been unjustly and unfairly taken from viable and loving parents, Crimmins, who is spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, blames the current crisis on a law that allows foster parents to refuse children, and on the children themselves, some of whom are labeled “severely disturbed”.
Are the children “severely disturbed” because they’ve been unfairly ripped from loving parents? Are they “severely disturbed” because of childhood mental illnesses that the parents were trying to control when they lost custody? What’s the story behind having so many homeless “severely disturbed” children in the state’s care?
I’d be disturbed too if I was taken from my parents by state-paid ‘do-gooders’ and forced into homelessness with strangers. And do they really expect children to take this kind of abusive treatment, and remain calm? What does this say about our society that we allow such cruelty to exist against the most helpless citizens, the children?
Meanwhile Texas legislators may pass laws forcing foster care providers to take children they don’t want.
“Allowing providers to pick and choose among foster children and the services they deliver undermines the entire foster care system,” Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said, adding, ”It also puts caseworkers in a bind when contractors can dictate which children they will serve.”
Two Texas toddlers have been placed in a fosterincarceration home for smoking pot. Their mother stands accused of falling asleep on the job. While asleep, two teenagers shared their stash with the toddlers, so the mom is not allowed to take care of her own kids.
If this is the only reason CPS is keeping those babies from their mother, it is a travesty. Why not just tell her the teenagers abused her kids, and warn her to keep the kids safe from the immature pot smoking teens? Why rip the babies from their mother?
Of course, I don’t know the people involved. All I know is what was written in a very short article, linked below. Most parents would respond positively toward a stiff warning; no need to tear the family apart and traumatize the kids. The mother didn’t give them the pot. Why blame her? Probably at least 90% of parents rely on teen babysitters at some time or another. So she chose the wrong one. What kind of crime is that?
Foster children are endangered by being placed in incompetent out-of-home care by CPS social workers. Rather than helping parents resolve their issues while keeping families intact, CPS social workers rush to rip children out of the homes God gave them, placing them in state custody foster warehouses in order to get federal funding streams started. Consequently children’s lives are being endangered as many people hired as foster “parents” don’t care for them in foster homes as well as loving relatives could.
This week a former foster “parent” was convicted of “injury to a child” in the death of a three-year-old foster child in North Texas in 2005.
Sierra Odom was killed by injuries inflicted by Timothy Warner, 31, the foster “father” Texas CPS placed her and her brother with. Warner’s wife testified that even though she knew Sierra was dead, she dressed the child before Warner drove her to the hospital. Along the way he allegedly staged an automobile accident to make it look like Sierra’s death was not a homicide.
From the article by Nathaniel Jones in the Star-Telegram:
The child-care operation was “money in the till,” said prosecutor Rebecca McIntire. “If the business didn’t work, they had nothing.”
Apparently Warner’s entire income depended on warehousing of children for the department of “human resources”. He had foster children, plus did child care for parents who worked at night.
This is how child “protective” services takes care of kids!
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