(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) The city of Waltham, Massachusetts, has been sued by a local couple after city police showed up at their house late at night to take custody of their children, WND reported.
Joshua Sabey and Sarah Perkins, the couple behind the suit, were shocked when police showed up to confiscate their children last July, said the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing the family, on its website.
According to the lawyers, the couple had just taken their then-3-month-old son, Cal, to check on a fever when “doctors discovered an older, healed fracture on one of Cal’s ribs.”
Hospital staffers called in the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, which determined that there had been child abuse.
Soon thereafter, the city police and the DCF showed up to take the children away.
“Three days later, around 1 a.m., DCF workers and Waltham police officers showed up at Josh and Sarah’s home without a warrant, which is required by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution,” PLF wrote, noting that police threatened to break in forcefully if not allowed in.
“The police threatened to break down the door if they didn’t turn over Cal and his three-year-old brother Clarence to be taken to a foster home,” PLF wrote. “Josh and Sarah complied, and after a heart-wrenching four months, the government restored their full parental rights and cleared them of any wrongdoing.”
The couple’s lawyer alleged that the late-night raid was illegitimate, and that parents should be able to go to sleep without worrying that the state will take their children.
“The government cannot show up under the cover of night and take your children without a warrant or a reasonable belief a child is in imminent danger,” said PLF senior attorney Joshua Thompson. “Parents should be able to sleep without wondering if the government is going to take their kids in violation of constitutional guarantees.”
The family denied all domestic abuse allegations, and their pediatrician said that she had “zero” concerns about such things with Sabey and Perkins.
“Nothing can undo the trauma of that early July morning and the prolonged abrogation of the Sabey’s parental rights,” their legal team warned. “For parents, the emotional and physical toll of having your crying children torn from your arms never goes away.”
