CHILD ‘PROTECTIVE’ SERVICES DESTROYED MY FAMILY (sent in an email by the author)

Each child in your family has a 1 in 25 chance of being the subject of a child abuse/neglect investigation this year. The chance of getting a flat tire on the family car is 1 in 70 (including Firestones).

Many children are taken from fit and loving parents solely based upon false allegations reported anonymously to a hotline, or as a result of a caseworker’s own personal judgment, or even by someone with a vendetta as in our case.

The State gains entry into private homes following the filing of a report of suspected child maltreatment. This report may be filed anonymously by anyone: a vindictive neighbor, a teacher, a day care provider, or an unstable busybody. You can lose your children from an anonymous phone call, with NO involvement from law enforcement, and NO charges of any wrong-doing. CPS controls the courtroom and employs the tactic of delay and “hide the ball” to keep families separated. This can go on for months and even years while children are separated from their families.

Actual acts of child abuse or severe neglect are not the primary allegations used to seize children from their families, meaning deliberate acts, willfully committed with the intent to harm - contrary to public assumption. CPS employs a method known as the "Clinical Model", in which the behaviors of the child are used to claim that there is some sort of obscure psychological abuse in the home that has traumatized the child.

“Child protection is one of the biggest businesses in the country. We spend $12 billion a year on it. The money goes to tens of thousands of state employees, collateral professionals such as lawyers, court personnel, court investigators, evaluators and guardians, judges, and CPS contracted vendors such as counselors, therapists, more evaluators, junk psychologists, residential facilities, foster parents, adoptive parents, MSPCC, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, YMCA, etc.”

Nev Moore, Founder of Justice for Families.

Service providers, called vendors, hold multi-million dollar contracts with CPS. Families are ordered to engage in "services" with these contracted vendors, all of whom bill Medicaid at enormously inflated rates for "services" that are often inappropriate, unnecessary, and completely irrelevant to the families situation, or to child maltreatment.

Behind the money is the socialist ideology that children should be raised by the state. This agenda was promoted by Dr. C. Henry Kempe (author of the Battered Child Syndrome) in the 1970's. An open supporter of the Communist party, he stated "We must remove children from the crude influence of their families and, frankly, nationalize them." Dr. Kempe emphasized the need for a "stealthy, incremental approach" to implementing the agenda to make families obsolete.

Families are coerced into participating by intimidation and the threat of losing their children. In return for fraudulently collected profits, the contracted vendors provide manufactured "evidence" of child maltreatment to support the claim that they need to keep the child in foster care. In return for this they receive more federal funding. Now this is truly job security.

Nothing in our life experience is more devastating than the abrupt, brutal, and
unwarranted forced separation by strangers. The parent-child bond is our strongest instinct, superceding all else. To have this bond severed by state agents who possess unhindered power, and give no thought or consideration to the fear, anxiety, and trauma that their actions cause, is a crime against humanity. This is happening to 4,600 children per day, right here in the United States of America.

The law states that a child can only be removed from their home as a last resort, and only when the child is at imminent risk of serious harm, but CPS does not follow established law and policy, and nobody makes them.

I home schooled 7 children and raised them in the Christian faith. My middle daughter (then 19 years old) walked across the street in January 2006 and told the neighbors that she was sexually molested with power tools, beaten with crow bars and burned alive. This all supposedly took place between the ages of 8 to 16 years. Never mind that there is no physical evidence of any of this (because it never happened). Not one of these neighbors bothered to come to my door to ask me if these things were true. My husband was arrested but subsequently released on bond.

The “protective” order drafted by this daughter disarmed us for 2 years. We live out in the country where predators threaten our livestock. None of us has ever pointed a gun at a human being, yet, this daughter “dreamed” that her father pointed a shotgun at the family and told them to get on the floor or he would kill us all. She later mentioned that the dream seemed “so real”. Yes, it was real enough to make sure we wouldn’t even be allowed to have ONE bullet in the home without fear of arrest.

My 2 youngest were taken away from me without a court order. CPS just walked in…and took them—NOTHING was done to keep them in the home. REMOVAL was the first and only choice of CPS. The law states that a child can only be removed from their home as a LAST resort, and only when the child is at imminent risk of serious harm. Removal of my two daughters, non-abused children, from their home was perceived by them to be an act of emotional and psychological terrorism. CPS does not follow established law and policy. They face no consequences for their illegal behavior. Law enforcement routinely submits to the whims of social workers as they did in our case as they accompanied CPS into the home and told everyone to get out of the house so CPS could “interview” me.

State and federally funded Child Protective Service agencies are seizing children from non-abusive homes in the absence of evidence or realistic cause to believe that the child is in danger of harm, an act of emotional and psychological terrorism, and CPS does not follow established law and policy. State and Federal regulations, and the Constitution of the United States. Children failed by the system have died while in the protective custody of the State, in the care of CPS and in foster care.

Normal, innocent people do not tend to be suspicious and defensive, so they usually cooperate when social workers knock on their door. This mother offered no resistance believing that truth and justice would prevail and that we had done nothing illegal and therefore had nothing to hide. Citizens should NOT be removed from their homes and family members based on nothing more than hearsay.

Federal statistics say that there are approximately 3 million reports of suspected child abuse and neglect each year. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services documents 900,000 as "substantiated", leaving over 2 million families per year FALSELY ACCUSED. Of the "substantiated" cases, 68% do NOT involve child maltreatment, according to the federal authorities. This figure is escalating at an alarming rate each year as over zealous reporting and frivolous intervention by CPS spins out of control.

Here in Texas, we have a similar rate of unsubstantiated cases of child abuse. “In 76.4 percent of investigations, investigative caseworkers either rule out abuse or neglect, or are unable to determine whether it occurred.” (Protecting Texas Children, Health and Human Services Commission, CPS Reform Recommendations 1.5 Screen Out Unnecessary Investigations...page 22 January 6, 2005)

The case dragged on with my 19 year old feeding CPS all kinds of lies...and they believed her. I asked this daughter HOW did she come up with these horrifying events that she told the authorities about. She responded that she did research on the internet and read case histories of sexual abuse. Then she said she “fantasized about it” to “make it more real…more believable”. Well, her lies, fantasies and dreams destroyed our lives. And she has been rewarded for it as well. She is going to school to become a social worker so she can join the ranks of CPS and “save abused children”: her words, not mine.

This daughter even perjured herself multiple times during our trial but there were NO consequences. There were also NO consequences when she failed to show up for the final day of our trial, even though she was under a subpoena. A legal system that tolerates perjury and the subornation of perjury can NOT produce justice.

Judges should not blindly go along with CPS and allow them to control court process, but fulfill their judicial canons by insisting that due process is followed, laws adhered to, and that procedural error is not tolerated. Parents are subjected to a highly irregular "civil" proceeding that makes a complete mockery of our judicial system. They are often told they may not speak or present exculpatory evidence as we tried to at the June 21, 2006 hearing regarding anonymous e-mails sent to our CPS caseworker.

The case degenerated into an exercise in character assassination and slander by neighbors who we have never met. Actual acts of child abuse or neglect that place the child at "imminent risk of serious harm" were not even discussed. Vague, obscure, and distorted allegations about our personalities and hearsay comprised the bulk of the “evidence”, including our "being in denial" and "anger problems".

Our family was put under a powerful, and distorted, microscope. Social workers asked bizarre and invasive questions. We were asked whether or not we had “explosives and missile launchers”, whether I intended to “run the pick up truck thru the public school, kidnap my daughters and take them to New Mexico and drink poisoned Kool-Aid and commit suicide”. One neighbor that we’ve never met, even wrote on a police statement that I come from a long line of devil worshippers. Perhaps this is why I was asked by the prosecuting attorney for CPS during the trial on the merits in June 2007, “did you ever drink blood?” I’d laugh my head off if this weren’t so serious…but unfortunately TRUE!

Under the CPS microscope every word, inflection, and action is attributed with the most bizarre and outlandish "meanings." If you have ever bounced a check, you have a "criminal record"; if your child is shy, they are "fearful and withdrawn"; if they are outgoing and active, they are "acting out due to the trauma."


Do the parents ever argue? Do they ever raise their voices? This is then documented as "domestic violence." The majority of the funding for domestic violence programs is channeled through CPS so this was no revelation to us. If parents deny domestic abuse or child abuse, they are told that they are "in denial", and this is all "part of the syndrome." Admitting - confessing - is one of the requirements. Truth and reality are not important. Saying the right things to keep federal funding flowing, is.

Federal law gives CPS 15 months to seek Termination of Parental Rights and have the child adopted out (and collect hefty adoption incentive bonuses—did we mention the money?) So, children are being put up for adoption based on the timeline, even when parents have not had a chance to answer the initial allegations, and in the absence of any evidence or charges that they have harmed their child. Social workers routinely perjure themselves under oath without ever facing any penalties or admonishment.

Meanwhile, children who have been removed from their grieving families are placed in state contracted foster homes and institutions which receive federal benefits. Residentials and other institutions hold multi-million dollar contracts with the social service agencies. Children are drugged, restrained, put in straight-jackets, some are sexually, physically, and emotionally abused. In Texas, 12,000 foster youth received psychotropic drugs in 2004. Each child averaged 21 psychotropic drug prescriptions a year. ALL are tormented by a system out of control.

One of my daughters CPS took from me "aged out" and returned home in April 2007. At one minute after midnight on her 18th birthday, we gratefully received her back into our arms. No one from CPS came out to our house to make sure it was “safe” for her to return. The day before she turned 18, she wasn’t even allowed to receive a phone call from us. The day after she turned 18, none of them cared. They don’t care because the Federal funding ceased when she turned 18. My 15 year old is not allowed to receive or make phone calls to us either. I am “allowed” a one hour a week, heavily supervised (by CPS) visit. She is not allowed contact with her brothers and sisters at all with the exception of the sister that was abducted along with her (the one that returned home to us recently) back in January 2006.

If social workers “care” so much for children, I have 2 questions for them:
1. Would you work without pay and sacrifice for the child? I did. No one paid me to be a mother, to carry the child for 9 months under my heart, to be there many sleepless nights when they had teething pain or were sick, prayed for them, taught them right from wrong, fed them, clothed them, educated them, gave up my time, and put off buying things for myself because I always put them first, just to name a few things that come to mind.

2. If a life-or- death situation arose, would you give your life for the child? I would. No questions asked.

Which of us REALLY has the “best interests of the child” at heart: parents or Social Services?

The financial incentives for shredding families, warehousing children until the barriers to adoption (parents) can be eliminated and children adopted out, are lucrative. CPS is part of a $12. billion dollar a year, tax payer fueled, child abuse industrial complex which provides jobs for caseworkers, judges, lawyers, bailiffs, various court personnel, psychotherapists, foster homes, pharmaceutical vendors and a host of others.

This is a HUGE growth industry that provides private profit through Medicaid. Service providers (vendors) hold multi-million dollar contracts with the social service agencies. Families are ordered to engage in "services" with the contracted vendors, all of whom bill Medicaid at inflated rates for "services" that are often inappropriate, unnecessary, onerous, and completely irrelevant (not to mention unconstitutional) to the families situation, or to child maltreatment.
This writer is 57 years old and has been married to the same man (the biological father of our 7 children) for 32 years. I am a registered nurse, do not drink, smoke, never did drugs, don’t even have a traffic ticket. I have never abused my children nor has my husband sexually molested any of my children. My husband has worked for the State of Texas since 1979. WHY is this happening to us?

Do you, dear reader, have any idea WHAT it feels like to have a child taken away for NO reason? Can you imagine the pain and anguish that comes in unrelenting waves as you try to figure out why this is happening? How would you like to be falsely accused of child abuse with your name smeared all over public records for horrific events that NEVER OCCURRED? What would it feel like to have your reputation destroyed? How would you like it if neighbors driving by your house slowed down and stared…and took pictures of your house? And every time you walk in the gas station or the feed store where the ranchers gather for coffee, they suddenly stop talking and stare at you? Did it ever occur to any of you to come to my door and ASK me if these things were true? Or was it more fun to gossip and believe the madness because it’s more exciting than reality? Now, we’re just collateral damage in the war against children, just another family chewed up and spit out by the State.

Families are coerced into participating by intimidation and the threat of losing their children. In return for these fraudulently collected profits, the contracted vendors provide manufactured "evidence" of child maltreatment to support CPS claims that they need to keep the child in foster care. In return for this they receive more federal funding. Now this is truly job security.

On May 21, 2007 the CPS trial on the merits began in the Caldwell County Judicial Center in Lockhart, Texas. It consisted of 6 days of persecution and mockery of my lifestyle and personal beliefs and made a complete travesty of our judicial system. Their “evidence” consisted of hearsay and e-mails allegedly authored by my 19 year old daughter. Constitutional violations were rampant throughout this ordeal.

The Guardian Ad Litem testified that it wasn’t “safe” for my 15 year old to return home “(even if the father were removed)” because she would “suffer thru abuse rather than report it”—“even if she continued going to public school because when she got back home, her mother would deprogram her.” WHAT abuse? “DEPROGRAM”? Does CPS normally “deprogram” it’s victims by telling them—as they told my daughters-- “your mother doesn’t love you”, “she abandoned you”, “your mother chose her husband over you”, “it’s all because of your parents that you are here in this emergency shelter now”, “your parents aren’t cooperating, it’s not our fault you are here”, “why don’t you pray to your God—see if He will answer your prayers and get you out of this place.” Your tax dollars at work. . .

Harvard psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce stated that "Every child in America entering school at the age of 5 is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well by creating the international child of the future." I guess the State of Texas and the public schools are just “making my sick daughter well”.

We USED to be Christian home schoolers. Evidently, the State of Texas has a resocialization program underway to destroy my daughter’s belief system since it’s a crime to be a Christian and to home school. It is socialist ideology that children should be raised by the State. Dr. C. Henry Kempe, author of the Battered Child Syndrome and an open supporter of the Communist party stated: "We must remove children from the crude influence of their families and, frankly, nationalize them."

On June 26, 2007, after 6 days of "trial", I was adjudicated as an unfit mother in spite of NO evidence of abuse and with the civil court’s full knowledge that “the criminal charges against my husband (which were fabricated by my 19 year old daughter) would be dismissed any day now because of lack of evidence”. Indeed, criminal charges WERE conveniently dismissed June 28, 2007--2 days AFTER CPS court rendered their decision. This is CYA (cover your afterburner) in operation. As of this writing, we are appealing to the Third District Court in Austin, Texas. SOMEBODY in this universe needs to investigate the corruption going on in CPS.

My youngest child (who will be 16 years old in February 2008) will remain in permanent managing conservatorship of the State and continue to reside in foster care against her will and despite her telling the judge, Guardian Ad Litem and all the rest of these people--on multiple occasions since her wrongful abduction by State actors known as CPS on January 11, 2006, --that she was never abused and just wants to return home. It doesn't matter how many times you tell CPS there was no abuse, they just tell you that you are in "denial" and "not cooperating". Children should NOT be held as indentured servants or held in thrall to others for acts they have not committed.

My daughter in CPS custody has not been allowed to see her brothers and sisters since their visits were cut off during a court hearing in February 2007. Before that, they were allowed a one hour a week visit. No phone calls were ever permitted and still are not to this day. We tried to get permission to have some phone contact with her but the Judge denied it again as recently as August 1, 2007. The reason the siblings’ visits were cut off was that the CPS caseworker told the court that 2 of the siblings were passing notes to my daughter. Yes, my son passed her a $20. Federal Reserve note because she needed money to buy school supplies and clothes for school. Evidently, Caldwell County doesn’t have enough money to buy what she needs. When we home schooled, there was always food, clothes and supplies for the children.

My husband is not allowed to have a visit with our daughter (in CPS custody) because he refuses to take sex offender therapy. He refuses to take it because he is not a sex offender. In retaliation for not cooperating with the court, the Judge is punishing him by cutting off his visits. CPS has gone above and beyond to punish us. The weekly one hour visit is held at CiCi’s Pizza, a highly public area next to the Army, Navy and Air Force Recruiting Stations. Apparently, the Judge thinks that my husband may leap over the pepperonis and molest our daughter, with a CPS agent sitting right next to us and 3 branches of America’s finest next door. He is however, allowed to be around my 15 year old grandson (same age as my daughter). The only difference between them is…my grandson was not incarcerated by CPS and pimped out to obtain federal funds.
After our trial, the Judge said that “REGARDLESS of the outcome of the criminal case, my husband has to take sex offender therapy” and our daughter can’t come back home unless recommended by THEIR CPS contracted, bought and paid for, psychologist. We tried to offer another expert opinion to testify that it was safe for her to come home, but the Judge practically RAN him out of the court room. They don’t want to hear anything that doesn’t agree with their paradigm. They certainly aren’t interested in the truth. Citizens should NOT be censured by public officials for crimes they have not committed.

I’d like to know how Caldwell County even GOT an indictment in the first place. All the so called “evidence” is whatever my daughter told them. There is no physical evidence of “sexual molesting with power tools, beatings with crowbars and burning in the fireplace”…. BECAUSE IT NEVER HAPPENED. My husband’s criminal lawyer told us the “grand jury rubber stamps indictments presented to them by the District Attorney”. Maybe that’s why this D.A. was voted out of office and replaced in January 2007. This former D.A. indicted several people during the same time span (that my husband was indicted) that also never should have been indicted. One particular, well known individual that comes to mind, put an ad in the Luling Newsboy newspaper apprising the people of Caldwell County that his charges were dropped by the D.A.’s office.

My husband and I took all the court ordered parenting classes required by the State of Texas and attended weekly psychotherapy sessions thru CPS contracted vendors. These sessions consist of nothing more than coercive persuasion designed to interrogate, break down your will and cause you to believe the unbelievable. In the end, it’s all for nothing. CPS tells you that you’re “in denial” and being “uncooperative”. It feels more like Nazi Germany and the Soviet gulags every day.

Think I’m being too harsh comparing CPS to Nazis? Homeschooling was a basis for child endangerment charges under Hitler. The German High Court (Hamburg) ruled in 1936 that "Custody rights shall be terminated for parents who, as fanatical Bible students, cannot rear their children in accordance with today's State and because this endangers the mental wellbeing of the children, who are thereby prevented from participating in the national community."

CPS routinely employs unconstitutional actions, fraud, extortion, deceit, kidnapping, and conspiracy in an ongoing criminal enterprise designed to cheat the public and destroy families of the United States of America for profit, for agrandizement and to delude the public into thinking their actions are for the general welfare of this nation. Unconstitutional summary judicial proceedings designed to perpetrate for-profit crimes against humanity, family dismemberment and human trafficking, and to defraud the Federal Government for Social Services Agency operational funds have been perpetrated upon many families in America.

Child Protective Services, in taking children who do not meet the statutory definition of abuse or neglect from loving homes is creating more throwaway children than they are legitimately saving. CPS actors merely decide that children are “at risk” and that abuse or neglect may occur in the FUTURE. These are POLICE STATE TACTICS that are routinely deployed against citizens of totalitarian regimes. What happened to due process? What happened to the Constitution of the United States of America? Where is the Bill of Rights? Dismembering families and creating artificial orphans by means of fraud and/or deceptive trade practices is NOT legitimate government business.

CPS engages in for-profit crimes against humanity consequent to the unlawful dismemberment of families to create human trafficking victims from which the County earns Federal funds with which to fund it’s operations. The exploitation of men, women and children for financial gain is the definition of human trafficking, which the U.S. Secretary of State Condolleza Rice states is a modern day form of slavery. http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/global_issues/human_trafficking.html

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, in Fiscal 2003, 30 foster children died in our state's care; in Fiscal 2004, 38 foster children died; and in Fiscal 2005, 48 foster children died. Data shows that while the number of foster children in our state's care increased 24 percent from 26,133 in Fiscal 2003 to 32,474 in Fiscal 2005, the number of deaths increased 60 percent.
Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn Statement On Foster Care Abuse given Friday, June 23, 2006 in Austin, Texas

DFPS statistics themselves underscore the fact that my 15 year old daughter is in FAR GREATER DANGER in the custody of CPS than she is in the care of her falsely accused biological parents. The State of California published the following statement: called the “perverse incentive factor,” States and counties earn more revenue by having more children in the system – whether it is opening a case to investigate a report of child abuse and neglect or placing a child in foster care.” Facts-at-a-Glance, Child Welfare in California, 09-09-2003 www.dss.cahwnet.gov/pdf/facts.pdf

At the end of FY 2003, Texas DFPS had legal responsibility for 22,346 children. Of that total, 15,414 children resided in foster care. In the same time period, there were 6,932 children in the Department’s legal custody who were not residing in foster care. Texas, as does California, PROFITS FROM HUMAN TRAFFICKING, which is a deplorable manner by which to fund County operations.

Some statistics from the State and County where I live:

In FY 2003, CPS conducted 131,130 investigations of abuse and/or neglect in Texas and confirmed abuse and/or neglect in 32,792 cases. In FY 2004, the number of child abuse and/or neglect investigations is expected to increase by 10 percent over FY 2003. In FY 2005, the percentage is expected to increase by four percent over FY 2004. http://www.hhs.state.tx.us/StrategicPlans/HHS05-09/final/pdf/Chapter08.pdf

In 2005, the child population in Caldwell County was 10, 258. There were 510 intakes alleging abuse/neglect, 448 cases were assigned to CPS caseworkers, 329 completed cases alleging abuse/neglect, 539 alleged victims in completed cases, 101 confirmed cases, 153 confirmed victims, and 131 cases opened for in home services. (Source: The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services) www.capco.state.tx.us/Documents/inthenews/Caldwell_County_Community_Plan.pdf
CALDWELL COUNTY FY 2007 - 2008 COMMUNITY PLAN FOR COORDINATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND RELATED ACTIVITIES

In 2006, the number of child sexual abuse clients served at Roxanne’s House (a program of the Hays-Caldwell Women’s Center) was 73. 30 were from Lockhart, 17 from Luling, 4 from Maxwell, 5 from Martindale and 17 from other Caldwell County areas. 26% of the child abuse clients served at Roxanne’s House were from Caldwell County in that year. (Source: Hays-Caldwell Women’s Center 2006 Annual Report). www.capco.state.tx.us/Documents/inthenews/Caldwell_County_Community_Plan.pdf
CALDWELL COUNTY FY 2007 - 2008 COMMUNITY PLAN FOR COORDINATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND RELATED ACTIVITIES

Two of my daughters are statistics in the 2006 report. NEITHER were EVER abused in any way, shape or fashion until they were abducted by the State of Texas. This was emotional TERRORISM and TORTURE of the highest magnitude, conducted under the pretense of keeping my daughters “safe” from imaginary “risk”.

It’s all about the money. And there’s no money in family reunification and returning my daughter home. For information about CPS, drugging foster children for profit, and the social engineering of our nation’s children, please check out my site at: http://texasroadrunner.spaces.live.com/
Citizens should NOT be more afraid of social workers than they are of criminals. To this end, I have uploaded over 1,000 documents in PDF format for your edification and enlightenment in the Public Folders section of my site (scroll down to the bottom of the page and you’ll see them).

My CPS horror story can also be read on MySpace at: http://www.myspace.com/texasroadrunner Knowledge is power. Empower yourself so you don’t become the next victim of America’s SS (social services).
Thank you for your time,
Carmen Rodriguez B.S.N., R.N.
texasroadrunner@hotmail.com