Texas police help kidnap a child
...by dragging him off his school bus. Warning: hard to watch; could be trigger-y.
Click to viewWords fail to vent my fury at this, or to describe what I would like to see done to the officers who knowingly and deliberately dragged a terrified, screaming child away from his home and family and delivered him into the hands of his abuser...non-anesthetized surgical removal of various body parts would be a good start.
Several things about this make me furious: the judge who didn't even read the bogus court order he signed off on; the police who failed to put the boy into protective custody immediately when there was a clear accusation of abuse...and not least the fact that this happened two months ago, and we're just now starting to hear about it.
Some of my reaction to this is very personal, as it probably is to any child of an ugly divorce. For years, my grandparents lived in terror of a scenario like this - I had already been taken once as a baby, and was missing for several days - and, by extention, so did I. From a very early age I was instructed to know my phone number and address, and told what to do if I was ever abducted (find a pay phone; tell someone at a gas station or a restaurant who you are). I vividly remember a time around age four when I was so convinced I would be snatched away from my home if I ever set foot outside the house that I never wanted to go out; and couldn't bear to be left alone anywhere ever. I can't even begin to imagine the terror this little boy went through, not to mention the trauma suffered by every single child on that school bus as they watched law enforcement - very descriptive term, that, isn't it; law enforcement - drag their friend and classmate away from his home and family and give him to a man he said was hurting him.
Two months is a very long time. No one has seen the boy or his abductor since this video was taken, and from all reports, the father has more than enough money to disappear very effectively. If I prayed, I would pray that Jean-Paul is reunited with his mother soon, and I desperately hope that what I suspect will happen instead - that the boy will be brainwashed and never see his family again, or that the father will hurt or kill the boy and possibly himself just to hurt the mother - does not come to pass. And lastly, I really, really hope that the judge and police officers involved in aiding and abetting this kidnapping are all fired from their jobs, and are never allowed to work in a capacity where they have power over peoples' lives ever again.
This whole story just proves something that children and poor people have known since time began: despite the happy bullcrap your teachers try to tell you, the police are not here to protect you. They are here to protect the law. Even when the law is a liar.
Q