Michael Carrigan, Department Of Children And Families Took child away for domestic battery that happened a year ago. Ripoff Jacksonville Florida

In July of 2005 my fiance and I got into a fight and he was arrested for Domestic Violence. I failed a drug test for THC so they MADE me sign a power of attorney to my mother. I was a dancer at the time and my investigator told me she would make sure I didn't get my son back as long as I was working in a bar. I quite working at the bar and proceeded to look for a job.

I hadn't been able to find one and My parents needed money to pay bills so my Father took me back up to a bar to make them some money. I fell back into it and when the money stopped coming in like she wanted my mom kicked me out. I quit and moved back in with her and my son. This happend several times.

I was given a case plan in july which I finished as of april 12, 2006. I was told to get a job outside of a bar which I did, provide a stable environment which we have, take care classes through hubbard house which I finished in feb.06, and pass a drug test which i did.

On april 11 this year I took my son over to my mothers(he had moved back in with his father and I)on my way to a prenatal doctors appointment. I told his father to go get him and bring him back to the hospital after she called and accused me of neglecting him, stating that his diaper had not been changed in several hours which was not true. Not really needing the stress she was causing me.

She filed a police report that his father tried to kidnap him. She called an abuse report into Department of Children and Families because of the diaper and the fact that he had a little bit of diaper rash that he recieved under her care that weekend.

An investigator came out to my house and talked to me, his father, and the paternal grandmother. He was here for all of about 30 min. He told us that the father and I needed to go into their office the next morning and take drug tests. That if we passed them he would go with us to get our son.

We did and we both were clean. That morning I had finished my previous case plan. That afternoon we were told that if we picked up our son he would be detained.We were told to come into the office that afternoon when we arrived they pulled me into the office alone and were very rude and used alot of coercen. I was told that now that I was pregnant again i couldn't just step back in and play mommy.

This remark I found to be very disrespectful and very inappropriate.

They asked me all sorts of questions and took the fact that I was crying and upset to mean that I am emotionally unstable. I ask anyone out there to please tell me that you would not be an emotional wreck when your pregnant, and then to have someone tell you they are taking your child away wouldn't make those emotions a little more difficult to handle.

Any good parent would be very emotional when told this. They tried to make the father and I out to be drug addicts. Which we are not... As young kids we experimented yes but nither one of us has done drugs in a while. Nor do we plan on ever doing them again.

I have never been arrested for drugs. His father was arrested in 2002 for a baggie with cocaine residue that was found in the backseat of his car. He had 4 friends in the car with him but none of them owned up to it so as the owner and driver of the car he was arrested. He was also 16. He has NEVER failed a drug test and he won't.

The only drug test I have failed since I was 14 was the one in july of 2005. They are trying to say that my child is in threatened harm. My child has not gone more than a few days without seeing me, his father, or his paternal grandparents since my mother got the power of attorney. He has not been allowed to see us since the day he was dropped off at my mothers house.

They are also saying that he has lived with my mother and she has been the one taking care of him since he was born which had a proper investigation beed conducted they would know is not true. We have proof that he lived with us in an apartment that we rented for 4 months.

We were appointed an attorney which we couldn't get ahold of. So then we hired an attorney who i am afraid we are not going to be able to keep. We like most young couples are not financially well off and cannot afford to pay 3-5 grand for an attorney. We have done all of the investigating and gotten all of our proof together on our own but we do not know a whole lot about our legal standpoint in this matter.

They are trying to say that we are unstable. My fiance has had the same job since he was fifteen. He did drop out of school but he has been working for Lee and Cates glass except for about 8 months ago he switched to Safelite to learn to become an installer. He worked there for 8 months then went back to Lee and Cates. He has no Vacation until July of this year but because of all the time we have had to spend on this he was told to go on personal leave without pay.

When we tried to tell the investigator that he didn't have the time to take off work they made it sound like he did not care about his child. I am no longer able to work right now due to complications in my pregnancy but we need the income. He cannot go back to work until this is all over.

We love our son very much and we are prepared to do anything in our power to get him back. We know that we made some mistakes in the past but we have turned our lives around and we have been trying to get our feet on the ground.

We live with his parents in order to try and save some money, I don't know how that can be held against us. We pay rent and take care of our childs basic needs. He has his own room and he is watched, loved, cared for in every way, and is taught, we do not spank, he has been spanked by his father and I maybe twice his whole life and never hard enough to get a bruise or even to make him cry.

I do know that they put him in my mothers house for foster care knowing that my mother was spanking him with a wooden spoon at 12 months old. He has had handprints on his legs and butt where she supposedly missed his diaper or hit him too hard. I am concerned that the state would allow DCF to take a child out of a loving, healthy, clean environment based on lies and past events that were already taken care of and force a mother to put him into a home where he could be abused very easily.

We later found out through a conversation with my mother that the investigator never even looked at the alleged diaper and/ or diaper rash. Yet in the petition to take the child he described what it looked like. How exactly can you tell some one how bad something is if you yourself have never even seen it.

I encourage anyone who feels that they need to call Department of Children and Families Into anyones life PLEASE look deep into the situation, there are alot of good families who lose their children for nothing. Other than somebody elses spite or lies. Good parents should not have to watch their children suffer because some one has a problem with them as a person.

Joanna
Jacksonville, Florida
U.S.A.

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