| More stuff got posted today, but if anything it just muddies the water further. Romanesko posted it to his Facebook feed yesterday after a journalist forwarded it to him calling it "bullshit". People have been picking the story apart since then. Some telling bits: * Florida doesn't have "Child Protective Services", the proper noun Skenazy repeatedly uses; Florida has a DCF. * Skenazy's story claims that the parents were unable to visit their child because the relative they left them with lived across county lines. But a felony charge doesn't prevent you from crossing county lines. * By Skenazy's own account (I'm surprised I missed this): the kids were placed in longer-term foster care because the "slightly problematic" relative they left them with put them back in foster care without informing the parents. * It's apparently not normal process in Florida for neglect charges to create both civil and criminal cases. I think it's also possible Skenazy, who is not an attorney, is confused: there may be civil-looking paperwork required to place the kids in temporary care. * A careful reading of the original story suggests that the kid(s?) may have been locked out longer than 90 minutes; the timespans you have to account for are: the time before the neighbor noticed the kid(s?) out in the rain, the time after that where the kids remain outside unattended until the police arrive, and then the time it took for the police to wait at the house with the kids (which also doesn't sound right; why didn't they just take the kids to the station?). What we actually know right now: * Somebody set of parents in Florida, who may or may not live in the same place (the single page of court documentation posted lists them separately) had some sort of run-in with juvenile court involve one or more kids. * A lawyer reviewed paperwork not yet released and said that it corroborates the parents story. Of course, the parents could be reporting accurately the actions of the police on that day, but leaving out a bunch of additional context from prior to that day. |