Georgia Parents Fighting the State for Their Children After Being Falsely Accused of Abuse
This could happen to anyone.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the heartbreaking tale of the Hernandez family, which is currently fighting the state of Georgia to be reunited with their children after being falsely accused of child abuse. This is the type of story that serves as a profound reminder of the evils that can be done through the government, especially when it is claiming to help the people.
It started when Matt and Takki Hernandez took their three-month old daughter Emma to the pediatrician after seeing bruises. This led to a brutal situation that separated Emma and her four-year-old sister Arya from their parents. Here is an excerpt from the article I wrote for RedState:
The pediatrician examined Emma’s injuries and suggested that the parents take her to the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (CHOA) for X-rays. The examination found that Emma’s ribs were fractured. The doctor immediately determined that Emma was a victim of child abuse, and Takki was arrested on four counts, including child cruelty and aggravated battery.
The authorities took Emma and Arya and placed them with Takki’s sister and brother-in-law. They had Takki sign a document relinquishing custody to the state, but she believed she was only consenting to have her sister take care of the child after she was discharged from the hospital.
About two weeks later, the police showed up at the Hernandez’s home to arrest Takki. She called her sister to tell her about the arrest and briefly spoke with Arya before heading to jail. During another call from the jail, Takki spoke with her sister and daughter for the last time. She was incarcerated for three days. As a condition of her bond agreement, Takki is not allowed to see or communicate with any of her family members, including her husband and children, who have not seen or talked to her since June.
At Takki’s first hearing, two medical professionals, a pathologist and a radiologist, both of whom had examined Emma’s records, testified that the child showed signs of underlying issues such as a metabolic bone condition or neonatal rickets, both of which could lead to easily broken bones. Matt told RedState that the medical experts pointed out that the hospital’s doctors “clearly didn’t do anywhere near enough testing to rule out medical underlying problems based on the reports he was given.”
The pathologist’s report noted that CHOA’s “diagnoses of abusive injury was made and confirmed almost immediately, based solely on the radiographic findings” and that there did not appear “to have been an expectation that any other laboratory studies would support any explanation other than inflicted abusive injury.”
If you want the full details, read my article on RedState. The long and short of it is that despite testimony from two distinguished medical professionals showing that Emma has a condition that renders her bones brittle, the judge still decided to place the kids into foster care.
Meanwhile, Takki is unable to see or communicate with her kids or even her husband as a condition of her bond release. This means she has not seen or heard from her family in over six months.
Matt has had limited visitation with his children and told me how both are experiencing stress and trauma from being in foster care.
“You can tell that [Arya’s] starting to put it together that she might think that we don't want her home, which is why she's not here. But the last couple of weeks, she always comes to these visits looking exhausted. She has rashes on her face and her eyes and some dry skin… she's still very happy when she sees me. But at the end of every visit, it's always a brutal, sad goodbye. Now, Emma is young enough that she doesn't really know what's going on yet, but Arya does. Arya very much does know. And they're traumatizing this little girl because they refuse to admit that they're wrong.”
Matt also told me that Arya has been sleeping “with all the lights on…which was never a problem when she was with us or her aunt and uncle.”
He also told me Arya used to love to dance before this ordeal. But now, she refuses to dance or swim due to the toll this has taken on her.
Unfortunately, this scenario happens far too often. Overeager government officials quite literally ruin people’s lives and destroy family because they have convinced themselves they are saving children.
The reality is that there are far too many families going through the same ordeal the Hernandez family is facing — and it is likely happening right in your backyard.