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New York City Children’s Services pays $75,000 settlement for removing newborn from home because black mom smokes marijuana — which is legal in New York (gothamist.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by DougHolland@lemmy.world to c/thepoliceproblem@lemmy.world

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“Even after a judge required ACS to reunite Ms. Rivers with her baby, ACS continued to subject Ms. Rivers to needless court proceedings and a litany of conditions that interfered with her parenting of TW for months, while the unlawful removal of her baby was ratified by senior ACS leadership,” the complaint reads. “This was not because ACS was trying to protect TW; this was because Ms. Rivers is Black.”

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[-] CluelessLemmyng 26 points 1 year ago

"The woman, Chanetto Rivers, will receive more than $75,000 and payment for legal fees after she accused New York City and its child welfare agency of separating her from her son when he and Rivers tested positive for marijuana in August 2021."

Newborn tested positive for marijuana. Looks like the agency originally believed there to be an abuse issue. Makes sense. Alcohol is legal, but if a child is being exposed to alcoholic abuse, best to take them away from the environment.

And it appears the settlement was more about the difficulties in getting her child back due to systemic racism in the courts.

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

In her lawsuit, Rivers claimed that hospital staff tested her for drugs without her consent in August 2021, when she was “overwhelmed with happiness and drained by the birth” of her son, TW.

Rivers and her newborn tested positive for marijuana, and the agency told hospital staff to hold the child “indefinitely,” according to the federal lawsuit.

I see nothing in the article indicating any problem except racism.

[-] CluelessLemmyng 22 points 1 year ago

And the article is omitting information such as why there was a drug test to begin with and if it was breach in privacy, why is the hospital not being sued?

Here's why: "claims from a hospital worker that she smoked marijuana in the hospital room". Mother also had previous interactions with the agency in regards to her older children.

So, hospital has cause to run a drug tests, drug test comes back positive on mother and newborn. Hospital reports to ACS who tell hospital to hold baby. Mother goes to court to get baby released, but this whole issue greatly affects an existing case she has with ACS in getting her older children back.

The lawsuit claims racism and falls flat when evidence suggests she is a neglectful parent and willingly endangering the unborn child by smoking marijuana while pregnant.

This is not a hill to die on when it comes to police problems. Not when there are more clear cut examples of systemic issues than this.

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I'm old and fat, and would die climbing any hill.

Always I've been told that there's confidentiality when dealing with doctors, hospitals, clinics, even blood and urine samples, so when you say, "hospital has cause to run a drug test," that startles me. A hospital giving drug test results to ACS startles me. If this is OK, it establishes that doctors, hospitals, clinics, and medical labs are agents of law enforcement, which startles me.

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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023

471 points (94.9% liked)

THE POLICE PROBLEM

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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

All this is a path to a police state.

In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

That's the solution.

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