Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s children were taken away from him after a tip from someone who turned out to be “mentally unstable,” according to police records.
Last month, the 44-year-old’s four-year-old twins, Penelope and Gus, were separated from him and his husband after an anonymous caller told Child Protective Services that he had committed “unspeakable violent crimes” and warned that the children could still be at risk.
It has now transpired that authorities later deemed the source possibly untrustworthy, due to her potential mental instability.
Sadly many of us have known that for years. Which sucks in the fact that it’s hard to fathom a good system for this problem. Every option has undesirable consequences when you can’t definitavely prove who is a bad actor.
IE case: report against person X claiming abuse of child
A. Investigate: Great, but how intrusive to go… Like in this case they took the twins away long enough that they could at least try to get the story. Probably would be better to drop in and see how the family is, but actual abusers could certainly keep the act and story straight for a few minutes/hours, and return right to it when the door is closed.
B. Take the kids out long enough to sort it out, good if there’s an abuser, but again horrific if there isn’t.
C. Punish the hell out of false flaggers. also good, but again comes down to the bigger problem of abusers that can cover it up. We all agree that there should be a harsh as hell penalty for people who knowingly file a false claim. But then comes “mistaken claims” and even “true claims that lack evidence”. When actual abusers can hide their abuse long enough to get through an investigation, and wreck the lives of the person who reported them, it creates the chilling effect of scaring legtimate accusers into silence.
I’ve been on the wrong end of DSS before, I know many people who have been on the wrong end of DSS over false calls, family disputes etc… Honestly this is so far from supprising to me, except the fact that in this case the victim is a high profile politician. The poor half of America has always known of this danger.