Baby Cheyenne

October 14, 2010 permalink

The baby Cheyenne case has become a high profile child protection case, rivaled only by the Aylmer Ontario case in 2001. The latest report from their advocates is at America20xy

Public pressure resulting from the uproar got child protectors to grant visitation with the baby yesterday after six days in foster care. During the visit father Johnathon Irish spoke live on the air to Alex Jones. The baby was unresponsive, so mother Stephanie decided to change her diaper. With social workers watching the whole time, they found her genital area covered in blood. Police, standing by in this notorious case, seized the baby from the social workers and took her to the hospital. A soothing public statement from social services later reported that the baby was unharmed and had been returned to their custody. The press reported on the injury to the baby without the facts demonstrating that the injuries occurred in foster care, followed by hateful reader comments blaming the parents.

There is a lot of fodder in this case for mudslinging against the parents. Even the normally family-friendly Robert Franklin suggests reserving judgment until all the facts are in, something that can never happen, since DCYF operates in secret. The parents have been portrayed as gunslingers, the mother as an unfaithful wife and the father as a revolutionary militia member. But arranging the facts in chronological order shows that none of the actors (except social services) have done anything irrational in the case.

ALERT. Statements by Johnathon's father (mp3) suggest that the story as told below is factually incorrect.

David Taylor and Stephanie Janvrin married and had two children. In January 2009 both of their little boys were seized by New Hampshire DCYF. There have been no reasons published for this seizure. Often child protectors take kids for no other reason than that the parents are defenseless. After a child seizure, most marriages break up, especially when the parents are young. The marriage has failed in its most basic function, the care of children. Stephanie left the marriage. As for David, he seems to understand that there is no chance that the law will return two young boys to a single father, so he has resisted the breakup of his marriage. Stephanie and Johnathon Irish formed a relationship for the same reasons as any other couple. When Stephanie felt justifiably threatened by David Taylor she got a restraining order and secured permission to carry a concealed weapon for her personal safety. When seven months pregnant, she was unable to carry the weapon in a holster strapped to her waist, so carried it instead in a computer case. Police found the couple driving together and arrested her fiancé Johnathon for carrying a weapon without a permit. Stephanie and Johnathon did not read internet sites for parents dealing with DCYF, so were unaware of the doctrine "once an abuser, always an abuser". They naively thought it would be safe to give birth in a hospital. Social services alerted the hospital of their intent to seize Stephanie's latest baby well before the baby was born. Hospital workers participated in sham assistance to the family until the baby girl was seized 15 hours after birth. Johnathon Irish then went public, using his associates in Oath Keepers for help. DCYF sent the baby to the same foster home housing Stephanie's other two children. To keep their costs low, they use a poor family for this function, and the fosters, without adequate resources for three children, neglected the baby.

One note of caution. The document calling itself a motion and described by advocates as an affidavit has a change of font between paragraphs 6 and 7. If may be a cut-and-paste fake. The parents would be better off using the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, even if some of it is unfavorable. Any fakery will severely damage their credibility.