NY NY - Patrick Alford, 7, Brooklyn, 22 Jan 2010 - #2

[watchful_eye]

I think bio mom has one small problem and it is called the Eleventh Amendment, but who knows?

Huh, great point webrocket. I guess we'll find out how far this goes...

 

[CHICANA]

I think bio mom has one small problem and it is called the Eleventh Amendment, but who knows?

But she's suing in federal court, I thought the 11th ammendment would only apply if she was suing a state in which she wasn't a citizen ?

 

[Salem]

I am just GLAD, GLAD, GLAD she is making a stink and trying to get something moving so her child might be found.

Yes, she was responsible for living a life that put her child in a bad situation, but I am glad to see she is shaking the cobwebs from her head and trying to do something for him now.

Little Patrick needs to come home!

Salem

 

[CHICANA]

What the judge said in this case brought tears to my eyes.
Would this suit be similar to the one Patrick's mom filed?

http://www.rd.com/your-america-insp...ly-accused-of-child-abuse/article31773-3.html

Finally, Isaacs filed suit in federal district court against the government, accusing the doctors who had treated Liliana of medical negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution.

On October 11, 2005, Isaacs and her co-counsel began laying out the details of how the family had been shattered.

A settlement was reached, but there was no assignment of wrongdoing. The Velasquezes were, however, awarded $950,000. About half went for legal fees and expenses.
As far as is publicly known, no one at the hospitals or in social services was fired or reprimanded. The foster-care giver was not found negligent.

After the papers had been signed, Judge Richard D. Bennett read a statement into the record outlining the "living nightmare" the Velasquezes had endured.
***Then the judge said something rarely heard in a courtroom, "I apologize on behalf of the United States government," and he came down off the bench and shook their hands.

 

[CHICANA]

I am just GLAD, GLAD, GLAD she is making a stink and trying to get something moving so her child might be found.

Yes, she was responsible for living a life that put her child in a bad situation, but I am glad to see she is shaking the cobwebs from her head and trying to do something for him now.

Little Patrick needs to come home!

Salem

I'm glad she's making a stink too, but she didn't put Patrick in that foster home.
Bad choices aside, I'm still stuck on the fact that there's no evidence that Patrick was ever abused or neglected until he was taken away from her.
If I remember correctly, she actually asked for help with her addiction problems which is how they knew she had used drugs. IMO, she wanted to change so that she could be a better mother and the state used it against her in order to take her child.
There were so many other and better options.
I wish I could believe that Patrick could come home.

 

[webrocket]

But she's suing in federal court, I thought the 11th ammendment would only apply if she was suing a state in which she wasn't a citizen ?

this case is not identical, it did involve the death of a child in foster care and the case was brought in federal court:

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th-circuit/1425063.html

 

[mommy23]

ok, I have been a lurker for years, and finally decided to join. Patrick tears at my heart. And for Mom to try anything in the world to give him justice, I am happy about. Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes big ones. The true judge of character is how we deal with those mistakes after they are made. No matter why, no matter who, Patrick is missing, and someone dropped the ball in his care, and someone should be held responsible. IMO

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

ok, I have been a lurker for years, and finally decided to join. Patrick tears at my heart. And for Mom to try anything in the world to give him justice, I am happy about. Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes big ones. The true judge of character is how we deal with those mistakes after they are made. No matter why, no matter who, Patrick is missing, and someone dropped the ball in his care, and someone should be held responsible. IMO

Welcome, mommy23!!! Glad you decided to start posting! Thanks for joining us on Patrick's case.

Couldn't agree more with your post.

 

[mommy23]

Im so glad to be here, and wish I had something to offer... ;(

 

[Salem]

I wish the foster home would have been investigated. I just think LE should have started there and worked their way out, instead of assuming that mom found a way to get Patrick or that he ran away.

Salem

 

[butterfly1978]

I am proud of Jennifer!
I hope she wins, the one thing I have noticed about CPS is they have made a good habit out of NOT protecting our children. Just look at the number of missing or murdered children and then look at how many of those children where "under the supervision" of CPS. You would think that someone would get the hint. I thinkthat there needs to be a thorough investigation of all CPS across the country. I hope Jennifer wins and gets enough money to hire a PI who actually cares about finding Patrick seeing as how LE doesn't and simply wanted to find some way to make this Jennifer's fault.. Just sayin

 

[webrocket]

I have felt poor Patrick met up with harm a long time ago and that is a tragedy of the highest proportions.

As for bio mom's lawsuit, there will be no winner, regardless whether she is paid any money or not. I don't think bio mom will ever appreciate her own history of poor decision making that put Patrick in harms way and have cost (and continue to cost) the poor taxpayers a staggering sum of money.

from giving birth at 16, the public assistance she no doubt was collecting, the cost of her own legal problems and jail time, the cost of getting child services involved to begin with, the cost of her false allegations against Patrick's father's girlfriend, once Patrick ran off there is the cost of the police search and now a lawsuit with the possibility of a future payout to bio mom.

I am not against people suing and oft times much good can come from someone standing up to the system. However in this case, once bio mom was going to jail, a court had to decide if her children would stay with other family or go into the foster system. That decision would never have been made if bio mom was not being sent off to jail. Nonetheless, if the judge made the 'wrong' decision to send the children to foster care, that is not a decision that forms a basis of a lawsuit. Judges (and their employers) cannot be sued because they made an erroneous decision.

That leaves bio mom to say that child services picked the wrong foster home. I don't know much about the foster mother other than what's been discussed in the news. Frankly I can't say Patrick was worse off with this foster mother than with his own mother. If the worst thing foster mother did was to answer a cell phone while taking out the garbage with Patrick which gave him a momentary opportunity to run how does that compare to bio mom's history of decision making?

 

[CHICANA]

I have felt poor Patrick met up with harm a long time ago and that is a tragedy of the highest proportions.

As for bio mom's lawsuit, there will be no winner, regardless whether she is paid any money or not. I don't think bio mom will ever appreciate her own history of poor decision making that put Patrick in harms way and have cost (and continue to cost) the poor taxpayers a staggering sum of money.

from giving birth at 16, the public assistance she no doubt was collecting, the cost of her own legal problems and jail time, the cost of getting child services involved to begin with, the cost of her false allegations against Patrick's father's girlfriend, once Patrick ran off there is the cost of the police search and now a lawsuit with the possibility of a future payout to bio mom.

I am not against people suing and oft times much good can come from someone standing up to the system. However in this case, once bio mom was going to jail, a court had to decide if her children would stay with other family or go into the foster system. That decision would never have been made if bio mom was not being sent off to jail. Nonetheless, if the judge made the 'wrong' decision to send the children to foster care, that is not a decision that forms a basis of a lawsuit. Judges (and their employers) cannot be sued because they made an erroneous decision.

That leaves bio mom to say that child services picked the wrong foster home. I don't know much about the foster mother other than what's been discussed in the news. Frankly I can't say Patrick was worse off with this foster mother than with his own mother. If the worst thing foster mother did was to answer a cell phone while taking out the garbage with Patrick which gave him a momentary opportunity to run how does that compare to bio mom's history of decision making?

I think children win when state agencies designed to protect them are forced to be held accountable for their actions. If suing is the only way to that, then so be it. Taxpayers should be angry that their money was being wasted on a foster home for a child that wasn't even abused.
I don't think it's fair to state as fact that his mom lied about dad's girlfriend. That was nothing more than an allegation made by a social worker. She was never charged with perjury.
I agree that Jennifer made a horrible choice, she should have known better than to call her government for help. She'd probably know where her child was if she hadn't called child protective services when she wanted help for her drug addiction. She should have read some of the horror stories here on WS, then she would have known how bad CPS is at keeping children safe.

I can say without hesitation that he was way worse off with his foster mother.
This is because I believe Patrick is likely dead because of her decision making.
Jennifer might have made bad choices but he was alive the entire time he was with her and IMO alive is better. Alive with an imperfect parent who made some bad choices is better than dead after being left with a total stranger that he couldn't even understand.

 

[cocolafay]

Im so glad to be here, and wish I had something to offer... ;(

Just being here and posting keeps Patrick's case where people notice it. Some day maybe the right person will see it and remember a fact that will help! :angel:

 

[cocolafay]

I am doing hospice for a good friend and only get to WSs occasionally to check on Patrick and a few others. I'm so very glad others are posting for him. I'll be back regularly when the time comes.

Please keep watching over him! :angel2:

 

[webrocket]

I was trying to see if any of the news stories had a link to a copy of the actual complaint she filed in federal court. so far I found nothing.

if anyone can post a link to it (if such link exists) I would appreciate the ability to see who she is suing and under what theories she is suing each defendant.

 

[AnaTeresa]

I took a look at the federal district where she would have filed, webrocket, but it doesn't seem like they are a more public district where you can pull up complaints. I'll keep nosing around, but none of the news articles really give enough info to search for it.

I saw this case linked in the Zahra thread - so sad, and so typical. Our CPS system is broken, and until we fix it, our children will suffer. There can be great foster parents - I lived across the street from one growing up, and there can be diligent caseworkers. Until we fix the system, though, we won't be able to bring up all foster parents and caseworkers to the standard where they should be.

And don't get me started on taking away kids from someone who's asked for help! :banghead:

 

[webrocket]

I took a look at the federal district where she would have filed, webrocket, but it doesn't seem like they are a more public district where you can pull up complaints. I'll keep nosing around, but none of the news articles really give enough info to search for it.

I saw this case linked in the Zahra thread - so sad, and so typical. Our CPS system is broken, and until we fix it, our children will suffer. There can be great foster parents - I lived across the street from one growing up, and there can be diligent caseworkers. Until we fix the system, though, we won't be able to bring up all foster parents and caseworkers to the standard where they should be.

And don't get me started on taking away kids from someone who's asked for help! :banghead:

that was the first place I checked, the homepage for the federal district court there in Brooklyn but did not see any public access to filed complaints.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

I don't know much about who can sue based on what and how and when and why and all that. So I'll just wait to see how this plays out. Hopefully, if nothing else, this lawsuit will continue to get Patrick's face out there in the news. Yes, someone needs to be held accountable for what happened, but the most important thing is finding a missing boy.

 

[belleyes]

RANT: this subject tears my heart up, I am so floored to see that Patrick is still missing.
O/T sort of
I just have to defend Childrens Services. I know the system is broken but we cant blame the foster parents we need to revamp the system, and make children a priority in both the cps and criminal systems. IMO we do not value our future generation. I am a foster mom and a social worker (I stay home now with my kids) so, I am VERY familiar with the brokeness of the system. Yes there are definately foster parents who have less than honorable intentions, but the majority just have oversized hearts. The caseworkers are underpaid and overworked. Many times when children are placed their is much more to the story than gets published, because CPS and foster parents are bound by confidentiality therefor you never hear the whole story. ( I've experienced this personally with the 2 kids I adopted, bio-mom was portrayed in news as a hero who reported the child her bf was making. noone ever found out she actually took the pics while perp raped the kids.) ---I am no longer bound by confidentiallity as they are MY kids now. Long Story Short---dont always believe what you read, or hear. I am in no way saying that this applies to this case, as I do not know the players. It is very odd that CPS placed a english speaker with a non-english speaking family. Unfortunately foster parenting involves taking some of the most damaged kids into your home and trying to show them normalcy----this isnt very appealing to many people so CPS has to decide place a child in non-english home or put them in a "shelter" program. A home is a much better choice. Children are "matched" with a foster home by
1. available space (not over state limits of # of kids)
2. age and sex (foster homes choose the age and sex they will except)
3. disabilities or abuse issues (some kids cannot be placed in certain homes because of
their potential to "act out" [a common behavior of abuse victims] sexually or
violently)