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A woman who was upset about losing custody of her daughter used a hunting rifle to fatally shoot a child-welfare agency worker who had handled her case, authorities said.
The shooting happened Friday outside a state office building that houses the Department for Children and Families, Gov. Peter Shumlin's office said. The mother, Jody Herring, was detained by people in and around the building after the shooting, police said.
The way they bear false witness to steal children I am surprised it doesn't happen more often. And the parents can jump through every hoop in the case plan trying to get the children back and they will make excuses to terminate parental rights anyway.
I used to try to help mothers get their kids back. They were taken for frivolous reasons like dirty dishes in the sink, stuff that happens from time to time in just about every household without a dishwasher, or the mothers would lose the children after leaving an abusive husband or boyfriend. Every single one of the mothers complied with the case plan. Not a single one of them were able to get their kids back. Not one. I had to stop helping because it was too hard to see them go through that.
My 'favorite' scenario was the ones who left abusers. The mothers were charged with "failure to protect" because the mothers were beaten in the same home with their children. Then, the government gave the children to the abuser because he was considered more stable and she was staying in a battered women's shelter. So, the abuser is considered a better parent than the victim. Someone who beats the children's mother is considered better than the mother who takes the children with her to the shelter to get away from the parent who beats her. Why is the government not guilty of "failure to protect" then? If he's not so bad then why is she being punished for failing to protect her children from him?
States receive federal grant money for each child they steal. It's a cash racket. And a lot of the children end up having to be chemically sedated because they're traumatized so bad from being stolen from their parents.
yspobo is exactly correct. This sort of thing is why I've said on many an occasion that CPS needs to be completely abolished or at least severely curtailed. They've become nothing more than a "snitch system" used by vindictive and judgmental people who think it's their mission in life to be "parenting Pharisees" running around calling on people for the stupidest things if they dare to parent differently than they do. CPS is hardly this warm & fuzzy and wonderful organization that saves children from monsters. Often-times they ARE the monster.
And monsters sometimes have to be shot. So there.
Understand--I don't applaud this mainly because once you've done this you can't win. One--if the case was still open, she still had a chance to be victorious in the end, this would ruin it. Two, if the case was closed, doing this wasn't going to reverse that outcome or eliminate CPS altogether (which, again, sometimes I think is what needs to happen). You still have your life to live, and just as people who lose their children to things such as leukemia find the strength to move on and still live their lives, that is what one needs to do in such a case, hard as it may be. Don't throw your life away, even after something this terrible where you think life isn't worth living at that point.
So, in those respects, this was not what she should've done.
However, I can't condemn her morally. What CPS does so much of the time is nothing more than legalized kidnapping. What they often-times do is, to be blunt, just as bad as child abuse. The way it's so easy to report someone for stupid things such as letting one's children play outdoors or walk home half a block from school or the like, it's wrong. Parents like the Meltivs shouldn't have to edit their parenting philosophies due to the threat of a CPS involvement, and yet too often that's what people have to do. It's wrong, and I can't get outraged over this, because frankly someone needed to strike back.
"She was just doing her job," some say. My reply--when your job is to KIDNAP someone's child (which is what I'm going to say this was unless it comes out that the woman had real issues such as drug abuse etc), you lose the right to any sympathy at what happens to you.
yspobo is exactly correct. This sort of thing is why I've said on many an occasion that CPS needs to be completely abolished or at least severely curtailed. They've become nothing more than a "snitch system" used by vindictive and judgmental people who think it's their mission in life to be "parenting Pharisees" running around calling on people for the stupidest things if they dare to parent differently than they do. CPS is hardly this warm & fuzzy and wonderful organization that saves children from monsters. Often-times they ARE the monster.
And monsters sometimes have to be shot. So there.
Understand--I don't applaud this mainly because once you've done this you can't win. One--if the case was still open, she still had a chance to be victorious in the end, this would ruin it. Two, if the case was closed, doing this wasn't going to reverse that outcome or eliminate CPS altogether (which, again, sometimes I think is what needs to happen). You still have your life to live, and just as people who lose their children to things such as leukemia find the strength to move on and still live their lives, that is what one needs to do in such a case, hard as it may be. Don't throw your life away, even after something this terrible where you think life isn't worth living at that point.
So, in those respects, this was not what she should've done.
However, I can't condemn her morally. What CPS does so much of the time is nothing more than legalized kidnapping. What they often-times do is, to be blunt, just as bad as child abuse. The way it's so easy to report someone for stupid things such as letting one's children play outdoors or walk home half a block from school or the like, it's wrong. Parents like the Meltivs shouldn't have to edit their parenting philosophies due to the threat of a CPS involvement, and yet too often that's what people have to do. It's wrong, and I can't get outraged over this, because frankly someone needed to strike back.
"She was just doing her job," some say. My reply--when your job is to KIDNAP someone's child (which is what I'm going to say this was unless it comes out that the woman had real issues such as drug abuse etc), you lose the right to any sympathy at what happens to you.
Well, let me point out that as flawed as the system is at times, you might prefer dealing with the Dept of Human Services to the police. DHS is geared towards family reunification and making households safe for the kids. They investigate problems reported to them (sometimes) and where they can, they make recommendations to allow the parents a chance to straighten the situation out. They do NOT remove children for dirty dishes in the sink. If the place is too filthy to live in safely, and the parents can't get it together to clean the place up, yeah, it's removal time. But in my state, unless the situation is an immediate threat to the kids, they leave them there and monitor the situation to make sure they follow through. The average parent in my state who loses a kid to CPS has had months or years to get it together and hasn't followed through.
The only alternative to CPS is dealing with the police. They do NOT do prevention or family-reunification work. They are forced to sit back and do nothing until the worst happens, and once a crime has been committed, they arrest and punish. Maybe you'd prefer that -- a kid dead or in the hospital, the parents under arrest. Sounds swell.
As far as the idea of this mom striking back against an unfair system in a way that brightens your day: Do you really think she's ever going to see her kids again after this? You really think this is going to focus attention on the plight of beleaguered parents who have lost their rights to their kids? (And she didn't lose her rights, according to the article -- only custody. She still would have had plenty of chances to get custody back and get CPS off her case.) All she did was prove the state right about taking her kids. I wouldn't trust her with a bowl of goldfish.
The suspect, whose name has not been released, was apprehended following the 4:45 p.m. ET shooting, Barre City Police Chief Tim Bombardier said. The woman who died, whose name also has not been released pending notification of family, had just left the Vermont Department for Children and Families office.
I do not condone the killing and think the loss of life is sad.
But yeah, Vermont is widely known as a very communistic state. The parent may have took offense at the taking of her child, maybe for a very unjustified reason.
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Mom unhappy with losing custody kills Vt. aid worker
