Are the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Guilty of Kidnapping with an Assist from the Winnebago Sheriff’s Department?

Late August 2011, my mother was informed by her granddaughter, whom shall remain anonymous and does not reside with her, was reporting being abused at her home.  Now this family, being so tight-knit, was quite surprised at this news.  We automatically began to check out her story to find out if any of it was true.  We soon learned that the incident did not happen but we did learn that there were a few issues we as a family needed to address.  We learned to better spot a call for help by our children and we educated ourselves on what we could do to help them through this phase.  To some, this information would have broken the family but to us, it only served to make us stronger.  That was until the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) got involved. 

Early September, my mother received a phone call from an individual saying that she was the supervisor of one of the investigative specialist assigned to this case.  At first it was quite a jolt to hear them attempting to educate a single mother who raised 10 children literally on her own plus was willing to adopt two of her grandchildren from birth, on the proper procedures to raising children.  Needless to say, neither, my mother nor I was very receptive to the unwanted advice.  The conversation turned into a wrestling match but ended up being my mother’s wish to relocate her daughter to her daughter and son-in-law’s home while this investigation was going on.  She was informed that this should only take a week and figured why not, that they will soon discover the same information that we did and all this would be over soon.  She was so very wrong.

More than 30 days later and after experiencing the numerous phone calls from her daughter’s school about her academic light beginning to dim, my mother made a courageous decision to bring her daughter back home and we worked to get her back on track.  Late November, DCFS again contacted my mother informing her that if she did not do as they wanted; they would seek to incarcerate her.  This really did not go over too well for me but because I was only there to support my mother, I really did not have much of an impact on her decision to send her daughter back to her daughter and son-in-law’s home.  My mother was again promised that the investigation should be over in another two weeks and her daughter would then be allowed to come back home for good.  That was another lie.

Another three weeks went by and still no word from DCFS about anything except their desire to complete a Safety Plan.  For those mentally, emotionally and physically involved, enduring this long-drawn out excursion was draining.  The biggest effect of this separation was taking its toll on the child and like any good parent, when your child is in pain, that pain is felt by you ten-fold.  The request for an extension of this debacle was denied by my mother and the decision to again bring the child home was relied to DCFS in late December.  Before this action was taken however, DCFS’ investigative specialist and those superior to her must have decided to strike first.  The next phone call my mother received was from my sister informing her that DCFS and the Winnebago Sheriff’s Department were there to take her daughter into protective custody. 

Now according to the Free Dictionary found at http://legal-ictionary.thefreedictionary.com/kidnapping, “the crime of unlawfully seizing and carrying away a person by force or Fraud,” moreover “under the Model Penal Code (a set of exemplary criminal rules fashioned by the American Law Institute), kidnapping occurs when any person is unlawfully and non-consensually asported and held for certain purposes.”  The fraud was the investigative specialist showing up, unannounced, at my sister’s home under the pretense of getting them to sign another safety plan.  They unlawfully took her because the child was not under any kind of imminent danger and she was not willing to go with them.  The “held for a certain purpose” is fulfilled because the reason was to force my mother to do as they said and to punish her for her defiance of them.  The issue had gone from professional to personal.

This week we finally got the information that we had been seeking since August and after looking it over was now fully in understanding of the reason this agency had just been admonished by Judge Pallmeyer filed in 1997.  The Dupuy v McDonald Case was all about one-sided investigation where the evidence was inculpatory (evidence of guilt) and none of exculpatory (evidence of innocence) against child care workers.  In it Judge Pallmeyer found that the “massive record” solidly supported plaintiffs’ claims and exceeded 150,000 persons. (http://www.ilnd.uscourts.gov or http://www.clccrul.org)   As of today, this traumatic event still continues except now they have formally charged my mother with neglect and they say that the criminal investigation is still on-going.  Family Court was of no use to my mother because those in charge made sure that she was no allowed to bring in anyone who truly understood this situation.  She was never asked if she needed an attorney and appointed one for her on their own.  She was not allowed to speak for herself or have a spokesperson.  She is now being forced by these same people to choose between keeping custody of her son or her daughter.  How many parents believe that this is an easy choice or one that any caring parent should have to make?  This investigation should have been over a long time ago and there are still many whom have never been interviewed by DCFS including the alleged offender, her son.

When any entity, agency or organization claim to be fighting for the best interest of the child, they should be forced to defend any actions that they take which undermines that very statement.  While they claim to be protecting her daughter, they are doing more harm than good and implying that my nephew is unworthy of the same rights that are extended to convicted murders.  This we will not allow to stand because we are a close knit family and when you disrespect one, you disrespect us all.  If this goes unchallenged, what will happen to the next family and the family after that?  How many times will DCFS are allowed to devastate family and walk away unscathed?  Free to dispense their style of justice under the umbrella of fairness and after they have done their damage, leave the family to pick up the pieces and try to reshape their torn families.