Kentucky CPS, Sheriff Enter Home without Warrant and Strip Search Young Children Because Mom Left them in Car for Few Minutes to Buy Muffins
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
Lenore Skenazy and Diane Redleaf recently wrote an article published in the Washington Post showing what lengths Child Protection Services (CPS), along with local law enforcement, will go to harass and humiliate families all in the name of “child protection.”
Josiah and Holly Curry and their six children have filed a lawsuit in Kentucky District Court against Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Vickie Yates Brown Glisson, the Secretary of Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, two other individuals, and Sheriff John Ward.
Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is representing the family.
The lawsuit claims that while Holly left her six children in the family van for a few minutes while she purchased muffins on the way to her 5-year-old’s morning karate practice, that police detained her and reported her to CPS.
The next day, a social worker appeared at the family’s house demanding to enter the home and inspect it, and also check on the children.
Holly, well versed in her Constitutional rights and understanding that she did not have to let the social workers in without a court order signed by a judge, offered to bring all the children to the door so the social worker could see them, but refused to let the social worker enter their home.
The social worker threatened her, and stated she would return with the police if Holly did not let her in.
Holly stood her ground, and later the social worker returned with a sheriff deputy, but no warrant. Threatening to take all the children away by force if she did not let them in, she finally complied.
Skenazy and Redleaf describe what happened next:
The investigator found nothing amiss in the home. She insisted on questioning the oldest child, all of 5 years old, alone behind closed doors in his bedroom without Curry’s consent.
When the investigator reappeared, she questioned Curry about her home life.
Curry answered fully, the lawsuit said, worried that any refusal would add to her peril.
The investigator insisted on taking the youngest child from Curry’s lap and, without permission, began to undress her. In the presence of the male deputy, the investigator proceeded to undress each child, male and female, down to the genitals (removing the diapers of the two youngest).
Curry tried to object, but she knew she was powerless to stop the investigator from doing full-body inspections.
The last to be undressed was her 4-year-old son, taught by his pediatrician that he should never let a stranger take his clothes off without his mom’s okay.
But when the boy tried to make eye contact with Curry, the investigator stood directly in his line of sight, leaving him helpless.
Then the investigator pointed to the deputy and said, “Show that cop your muscles!”
The little boy removed his shirt and flexed his biceps as ordered. The investigator and deputy began laughing while the investigator started to pull down his pants.
When the little boy finally was able to look back at his mother, she was holding back tears. The little boy’s face registered shame and fear.
These systematic nude examinations by nonmedical personnel, all without Curry’s consent, yielded nothing in the way of evidence — no scrapes or bruises.
But, Curry told us, “the experience left an indelible mark on our whole family. We all felt violated.”
A few weeks later, the investigator closed the case as “unfounded.”
But it wasn’t closed for Josiah and Holly Curry and their six children, and now they are suing.
