There are many things that I will experience... well, probably throughout the rest of my life... where my perspective will be different because I am a parent. I'm understanding this more and more each day, and really, this realization was one of the reasons why I started Life with Mr. O.A lot in the news will annoy me each day, but almost nothing recently has made me so mad as this.
Read it... Now, read it again.
It's true and in my mind, it's criminal. Not Mr. Ratte. The State of Michigan. People in government, who like to claim they are working each day in public service, wonder why other people call them bureaucrats.
Read this... Now, read it again. Here's your answer, bureaucrats.
Some people will say Mr. Ratte should have known Mike's Lemonade had alcohol in it. Other people might mock him for being out of touch because he missed those stupid TV commercials where the bottles of lemonade wear sombreros and dance in the alcohol aisle. All those people would be wrong.
Let's put aside for a minute the fact that Michigan's Child Protective Service Department has sentenced children to death recently with their criminally incompetent placement of children with certain foster "parents." Let's put aside for a minute that Michigan's governor only last week - three years after Ricky Holland and more than a year after Issac Lethbridge - courageously called for a review of the state's CPS system that will take... ONE YEAR!
Mr. Ratte and his son were banking on a system that is missing something fundamental... a single solitary ounce of common sense. And really, the term "common sense" doesn't really hit the point. The system is missing someone who will stand up and scream, "This whole thing is a freaking disaster."
No one was willing to do that the other night at Comerica Park, the hospital, the police department, or the Child Protective Service Department, and as a result, a 7 year-old boy and his parents were tortured. And no, tortured isn't too strong a term for stripping a child from his parents and placing him in an unknown Detroit foster home.
And then there's this. From Mr. Ratte: "I have apologized to Leo from the bottom of my heart for the silly mistake that got him into this mess."
Mr. Ratte, the line is long of people who owe your son an apology, and you're no where near the front.
UPDATE: Welcome Right Michigan readers and appreciation to Nick for including this post in his morning update.
The story of Mr. Ratte and his son is getting more attention and an interview with him is posted here.
Still, there seems to be a baffling commentary that I've seen in more than a couple places that, "Ha, ha, this silly man. He doesn't know what Mike's Hard Lemonade is? Bet he knows now."
Could anything be further from the point of this episode?
And, one more thing. The fact that this man can remain this calm about this is nothing short of remarkable.
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2 comments:
That's just maddening...
Ricky Holland and Isaac Lethbridge can get sent to places where they're murdered but this poor family gets torn apart because of a mistake at the concession stand?
I hope someone loses their badge over this.
--Nick
www.RightMichigan.com
Seriously, Nick, this is a tough case. The police officer in the stadium probably could have used "discretion" and gave the guy a serious warning, but in today's climate of legal liability and political blame for everything including acts of nature/god where no blame is rational, the officer would have been taking a serious risk. If the father were a genuine threat, or even if the accidental ingestion here described had caused some medical reaction in the child and the child died or was severely hurt because of lack of medical action, then the officer really would lose his badge. Indeed, if the child ended up dead like Ricky Holland (either because of the alcohol or the father doing something later on), then we'd blame the officer and system for that.
So you/we can't/shouldn't ask for the officer's badge.
The problem is that NO ONE can really be blamed for this chain of events - and that the SYSTEM has no "checks-and-balances" or singular individual in it that is ultimately responsible for applying common-sense to prevent the continued escalation of government activity. The problem is that the system presumes parents guilty without due process.
The simple solution is that the child shortly after the parent is detained and the child temporarily brought into police custody, that the child can't be committed to foster care or otherwise more-significantly separated from parents until a real hearing occurs with a real judge.
If that requires a judge at 3am - so be it. Almost all jurisdictions have a judge on call at all times - if you can get a warrant over the radio for a blood alcohol warrant (on driver refusal) you sure as heck can have the system make that requirement for any contemplated action against a parent and child (police should still have the discretion to temporarily separate children in those obvious situations, but like the rest of criminal law if the police have time to take contemplative action and there is no exigent and urgent circumstance they simply can't, say, invade a home without a warrant). This case was clearly one of the police, and the system, having time to quickly bring this before a judge. Instead, the judicial hearing process took days, and the father was PRESUMED GUILTY UNTIL HE PROVED HIMSELF (begging and throwing himself at the mercy of the court, which, while demeaning, was certainly a good choice on his part).
That's the problem with this case, and the system, and government generally (our regulatory environment for businesses is 1) slow 2) presumes the business guilty until it proves its not and goes through a gauntlet red tape and processes. Flip those conditions around on any policy, law, regulation, or system, and you can have at least a rationally fair system even if somewhat cumbersome.
Ideally, this story plays out with the officer taking the parent and child into custody, with the child perhaps being put in another room for a short time while the parent is interviewed. Documentation of the incident is made (in case there is to be a pattern). Perhaps the child is sent for medical observation after complaining of nausea. In the meantime, a judge gets involved and either applies common-sense, or we as a people take note of it and apply common sense on the judge at the ballot box. But that individual accountability was never here.
A trip to the police station with documentation and a quick release would not have been a serious burden for this father or child. It would have been a reasonable lesson for the father to be more attentive (as a professor he certainly has those skills), whose naivete and lack of social knowledge were in fact somewhat to "blame" (although not to the point of justifying this outcome), and a reasonable place for common-sense the process.
Very simple reform legislation is suggested by this story (although the family court and law system has many more problems than this and the reforms for the set of problems is very complex). Make it so that on-call judges can quickly get involved in cases where separation is an issue. It's certainly as important as having them available for an DUI case. When officers bring a child into the station with a parent just arrested for having a pile of heroine on the cocktail table or stuffed under the front seat - the judge is going to have an easy 3 second thought process on that one. When this case shows up in front of him - there might actually be a couple of minutes of thought and inquiry, and all will be resolved.
Chet
www.OutsideLansing.com
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