Quote:
Originally Posted by Drolefille
Okay so if you know there's a FLDS "compound" or "ranch" or what-have-you, you already have some idea exactly what is happening there, but you have no evidence. You get a call with specific information, names and locations and ages. "Yes" you think, "a chance to at LEAST check this place out and at MOST shut them down." You show up and there are over 400 children there. You can't find "Sarah" or at least, no one admits to being her. You do find 12-16 year olds with children and older teens with multiple children.
According to Texas' law, where you cannot marry under the age of 16/consent to sex even WITH parental permission, this means something illegal is happening. Add in the knowledge you have about the FLDS church and you know exactly what is happening.
At this point you have to take the children. And you can't leave some behind, there's a chance they'll disappear. There's a pattern of repeated abuse and exploitation, and it's crazy to leave children in a habitually abusive home. These policies were put in place before they ever thought they'd need to remove 400 children at once, but they make sense.
And generally, the last thing that DCFS/CPS wants is to take children away. Usually the family is the best place for the child, even if it isn't perfect. (Or from a heartless perspective it's all about the $$$).
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I was really just thinking about the standard to get the warrant for the first raid. Once they were there, no doubt the actions they took were the correct ones.
Here's the thing: if all it takes to get a warrant when we suspect what's going on and yet can't work up enough evidence to get a warrant based on what we think is up, is an anonymous phone call, then we basically create a situation where there's an incentive for suspicious folks to fake phone calls, and some of the raids based on fake phone calls will turn out to be without merit.
I'd rather we used a better standard to establish the cause for the original warrant. Consider a different circumstance in which people suspected abuse, maybe WASPs in the the suburbs who grow suspicious of their Muslim neighbor's treatment of his daughters. Would you be cool with a warrant based on an anonymous phone call in that case?