Innocent Bath-Time Photos Get Kids Taken Away From Parents - Arizona
Apparently, some photo-clerk vigilante, diligently on the lookout for child pornography, saw photos of kids during bath time and decided to call the cops. Next thing the parents of these kids knew, the children were removed from their home for an entire month. Mom got suspended from her job for a year and both -- Anthony and Lisa Demaree -- were added to a list of sex offenders. The judge in the case said the pix were harmless.
"I don't understand it at all," Anthony Demaree told GMA, with his wife by his side. "Ninety, 95 percent of the families out there in America have these exact same photos." Now they've got another shot to take. This time it's directed at Wal-Mart and their hometown.
"Don't You Just Love Your [Insert Ethnicity] Nanny?" (Jezebel)
"When $800 strollers hit the market a few years ago, it looked as if baby status symbols had reached a new odd, capitalist apex. Now[...] primo credentials trade in a different kind of capital: nannies." Specifically, the brown-skinned kind...
MPP & Jane are both dealing with chaos on the homefront. The amount of time we have to dedicate to the blog is temporarily limited, but we still need those nanny sightings!
14 comments:
I hope the parents sue everyone remotely responsible for all they are worth!
I have taken pics of my baby in the bathtub, being silly and cute. This is ridiculous. This poor family! What a horrible thing to have to go through. It's just disgusting how people can turn something innocent into something dirty.
I'm with you, MM. Not to mention, the kids are wrapped in towels!
Jane and MPP,
Prayers going up for you both!
Believe me, I know about chaos on the home front! Hang in there!
Well, I think it's safe to say that the kids will come away with more emotional scarring from being removed from their family for a month than from having a few nudie tub shots taken. Sue...sue away, I say! That is utterly ridiculous on so many levels.
Wal-mart and that police department are done for-- those poor kids would have been more "exposed" in beach vacation pictures! I can't even begin to understand how this possibly went as far as it did...
As far as the second article: I like that the general public/media seems be getting interested in nannies... Definitely added the book mentioned in the article to my ama.zon wishlist
Oh.my.gosh. When they said "bathtime" pictures I expected kids in the bath, not kids fully wrapped in towels. Pretty much everyone I know has pictures of their kids way more exposed than this. Here's what I don't understand (and couldn't load the whole video, so sorry if I missed)- if the judge did not convict them of child pornography or exploitation or anything, how are they added to the sex offender registry? What a nightmare for the whole family.
Ok a little bit of Common sense here:
1) Only 4 of the 8 photos of the kids were released, as apparently the other 4 were deemed inappropriate for public view by the parents. Think about that.
2) Wal-Mart Employee informed the police of a possible violation of Child Pornography Law. If it had been a couple who was selling these photos instead of being harmless parents. Then we would have said kudos to the Wal-Mart employee. I doubt Wal-Mart would find itself truly liable in a court of Law, though they may settle because it is cheaper then going to court.
3) The Police took a look at the Photos did an investigation and the prosecutor took the evidence too a judge who pronounced it harmless family photo’s. Law enforcement covered the bases and got a pronouncement of its all harmless from a judge. Did they go further then they had too? Possibly but they did follow the law and when all hoops were done they did their job. See Number 2 for any lawsuit chance.
4) Child Protective Services, this is where the problem is, as they are a Regulating agency, not a Law Enforcement Agency they cannot make arrests they have to bring in police officers to do it for them. Hence the non removal from the sex offender registry, the whole kids out to foster for a month and the battery of legal issues that the family ran into. As they are a government agency and not a law enforcement agency the family is going to have little to no headway in court. This is where the actual problem lies.
5) The school, the wife is on administrative leave for a year because of the allegations. The school should now give the job back to the mother. Oh wait the mother and father is still on the sex offender registry. Cannot work in most if not all public schools. Back to #4 and until #4 allows the release of the parents from that list they will continue to have problems. The list kept by the service for administrative purposes does not only include those who are legally proved to be sex offenders but includes anyone who has been found under suspicion of being so. Wait till the children are older and if one gets into a snit with their mother/father and says something to a counselor and that counselor looks up the parents…….
Did you know you cannot sue an agency for following their own regulations as long as the regulations do not violate the law?
I hope for the best to that family but I am afraid they are down the creek without a paddle.
Curious Dad:
Valid point about the pictures themselves, but if the other photos were actually inappropriate, I highly doubt the parents would be bringing this to media attention.
I also (respectfully :)) question a few of your other points. My understanding is that you cannot be on the sex-offender registry list until you are convicted of a crime (innocent until proven guilty?). CPS does not have the authority to put anyone on that list, though they can take their merry time returning the children. While I understand all the red tape involved in a situation like this, I don't understand how they were put on that list when the judge said everything was fine. In fact, (and Jane correct me on this) but I thought a judge had to give CPS permission to take the kids in the first place. Again, if the judge threw the case out, then an arrest warrant would not have been issued in the first place...
Oh God. I guess my mom should be taken to jail for taking so many naked pictures of me. LMAO I guess every single parent should be taken to jail. Idiots.
What I think happened to the parents was awful. I just think some common sense needs to be applied before having a lynch mob go after Wal-Mart and the Police.
CPS can take the kids on an emergency basis without a judges order. But they do have to return them as soon as the judge says there is no problem, hence the one month in foster care the kids had.
I checked the Arizona Sex offender registry and they are not at this time on it. So either they have been removed, if they were ever on it. Or they are considered level one offenders which does not show up on the internet list.
That said; the list they may be talking about could be the internal CPS list. Which has more to do with their internal controls then any outside source and is NOT normally subject to court order as it is an administrative function. Proven innocent or not everyone who comes to the attention of CPS goes on that list. And I am unsure how anyone can get removed from it without possibly an expensive lawsuit.
Due to mandatory reporting, CPS receives tons of reports of child abuse and neglect each year which are unfounded (in that they cannot be proven, although likely in some of these cases abuse did occur). Of course CPS maintains a record of each of these reports, because, for instance, one report may be unfounded, but if you begin to accumulate reports on a single family, that's a red flag. However, unless it is actually substantiated, there is no way they can keep you on a registry of "child abusers" or "sex offenders." Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
I think there should be a total lynch mob going after walmart. they screwed up. Someone who was developing those photos had way too much time on their hands and was bored. Following procedure, my ass.
Again, I hope this family sues walmart and the PD for all they're worth. There was no excuse for this to happen. Curious Dad, I hope they get a GOOD lawyer who can find a way around all the legal mumbo-jumbo and find a way to sue their asses. It can be done.
There are so many women and children who are being exploited, abused, and raped in our country and they waste their time on this??? On an innocent family? The people who hurt this innocent family deserve the worst, in my opinion. And if they don't get it, there is something seriously wrong with the justice system.
I think Curious Dad has covered most of this, and quite well.
Put me down for what he said.
I was reading an article the other day that said essentially this: everyone wants the children to be safe and therefore the toughest laws there are. The thing is, if you make your net too fine, what you really end up with are small fish, and you run out of money and time to catch the big ones. My heart goes out to this family. What a waste.
I haven't seen and will not look at the pictures. I have no problem figuring out why the parents would choose not to show some of the pictures, even if they are perfectly innocent.
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