North Carolina Child Protection Services Threatening to Seize Children from Parents in Red Cross Shelters that are Shutting Down

Earlier this month (October, 2024), we published a report from Hannah Stutts, the owner of JAKS Stables in Western North Carolina, where she serves as the dispatch of relief efforts in isolated towns that still need help after the devastation following Hurricane Helene, where they had distributed over 10,000 body bags, and still needed more. Hannah just published an update where she states that Red Cross shelters are now closing down and forcing homeless families out, and that North Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS) is threatening to take their children away from them if they have nowhere to go.

9-Month-Old Baby Taken from Parents on Routine Traffic Stop in North Carolina

New Jersey couple Raymond Sykes and Kaila Boulware were traveling back to their home in New Jersey with their 9-month-old son after visiting Kaila's father in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday. Also in the vehicle were their two dogs, MANUELA and Rayla. Rayla is the 9-month old baby's puppy. On the night of December 3rd, 2020, while driving through Troy, North Carolina at around 3 a.m., the family was stopped by two sheriff deputies. Reports from the sheriff department states they were pulled over because they were driving with "a white tail light" and it was “being driven in a manner, place and time that was suspicious.” When one of the officers stated that they were going to search the van, Raymond allegedly asked them "why?", raising concerns about the legality of searching their vehicle without a warrant. That's when the situation took a bad turn, according to media reports. Rebecca Panico, writing for NJ Advance Media on NJ.com reports: "Sheriff’s deputies from Montgomery County, N.C., drew their guns, violently beat Sykes with a baton in the baby’s presence and searched their vehicle for two hours. The couple told NJ Advance Media they nervously complied with officers’ orders prior to the traffic stop escalating." “Yahweh, please protect me,” Sykes said he shouted, hands in a prayer formation in the air as he walked toward the hood of the deputy’s car. “Don’t let these people hurt me.” At the end of the two hour search of their vehicle, both parents were arrested and locked up, the baby was turned over to Child Protective Services and placed in Foster car, the two dogs were taken to an animal control center where the older one ended up dying, and the car was towed away. Welcome to North Carolina.

North Carolina CPS Leaders Indicted on Criminal Charges for Taking Children Away from Parents without Approval from a Judge

The Carolina Public Press reported this week (May, 2020) that three current and former Cherokee County Department of Social Services leaders have been arrested on dozens of criminal charges for separating children from their parents without the oversight of a judge, a practice that is alleged to have been going on for years. The three are: Cindy Palmer, former DSS director and the wife of Cherokee County Sheriff and Baptist Pastor Derrick Palmer, former Child Protective Unit supervisor David Hughes, and former DSS attorney Scott Lindsay. Kate Martin and Frank Taylor wrote the article in the Carolina Public Press. This is not the first time that Health Impact News has reported news about corruption in Cherokee County, North Carolina, over illegally kidnapping children through Social Services. In 2018, Associated Press reporters Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr broke the story of how social workers in Cherokee County had been reportedly coercing parents and taking their children illegally, bypassing the court system by threatening to adopt out their children or throw the parents in jail if they refused to sign paperwork known in NC as a CVA – Custody and Visitation Agreement. In 2019, Kate Martin, reporting again for the Carolina Public Press, reported that an internal memo revealed that state officials knew that Cherokee County Department of Social Services was illegally removing children from their homes, allegedly HUNDREDS of them, before a civil lawsuit was filed in 2018 and before a request was made for a State Bureau of Investigation probe into the matter. Health Impact News has published many stories of corruption in the State of North Carolina over the years on our MedicalKidnap.com website, suggesting that Cherokee County is not the only place where children are being illegally removed from their parents in the State of North Carolina. See: Native American CPS Whistleblower Goes Missing in North Carolina : Daughter on the Run - North Carolina Child Medically Kidnapped Starving to Death in Foster Care - Infant with Brittle Bones Medically Kidnapped in North Carolina as Mother is Arrested (Also featured on the Dr. Phil TV Show) - North Carolina Kidnaps Children from Grandparents because of Medical Kidnap Article - North Carolina Military Family’s Breastfed Infant Daughter Medically Kidnapped for 305 Days - North Carolina Mother Flees State to Protect Children from State-sponsored Kidnapping - North Carolina Man Records Call with Social Worker Asking Him to Date Her to Get His Kids Back - If you are new to the topic of "medical kidnapping" or kidnapping of any kind by State funded social workers, you might be tempted to wonder why North Carolina has such a horrible problem of corruption and kidnapping of children based on these reports. However, this goes on in all 50 states within the U.S., and since we have been reporting on these horrible stories since 2014, North Carolina might not even make our top 5 in States that have the worst record of abusing children and kidnapping them. And now with the current COVID-19 government response, this problem could get a lot worse, as states have even more reasons to take children away from their parents and traffick them through the foster care system.

North Carolina Man Records Call with Social Worker Asking Him to Date Her to Get His Kids Back

A man claims a Gaston County social worker offered to clear his case if he agreed to go on a date with her. David Cole said he started recording their conversation because he was worried he would lose his children if he didn't play along. Officials said the social worker is no longer on the case after the recordings revealed conversations that had nothing to do with child welfare. "Have this relationship with her or lose my kids,” Cole said. “It's hard to deal with. I lost a lot of sleep behind that." "It’s very inappropriate, you know,” Cole said. “I’m scared for my life, scared for my children’s welfare, my welfare."

North Carolina Military Family’s Breastfed Infant Daughter Medically Kidnapped for 305 Days

When a family welcomes their firstborn, no matter how difficult the labor, how long the labor, whether instrumentation had to be used to get the baby out, or whether an emergency cesarean is done to finally welcome their new bundle of joy, all of this is a distant past with the arrival a new baby.  With ten fingers and ten toes, doctors and nurses unconcerned about the events that took place during birth, you assume you are blessed and have happy, healthy baby.   Families are starting to realize these events that occur during labor can result in underlying conditions that can lead to false allegations of child abuse and tear families apart.   A military family from North Carolina tells us about their almost one-year long ordeal that threatened to take their daughter away from them forever. After taking their baby to the emergency room, they were transferred to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Children’s Hospital, where the Beacon Team, with their Child Abuse Specialists, accused them of abusing their baby.

Investigation Reveals North Carolina CPS Took HUNDREDS of Children Away from Parents Illegally

“I’m sort of flabbergasted by it. It’s one of those situations where – very rarely am I speechless – I am absolutely speechless over it.” These were the words spoken by North Carolina District Attorney Ashley Welch, when reporter Kate Martin, writing for the Carolina Public Press, asked her to respond last week (August 2019) to news that an internal memo revealed that state officials knew that Cherokee County Department of Social Services was illegally removing children from their homes, before a civil lawsuit was filed in 2018 and before a request was made for a State Bureau of Investigation probe into the matter. In 2018, Associated Press reporters Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr published an investigative report showing that Cherokee County Department of Social Services removed many children from their homes illegally, perhaps "hundreds."

Parents Lose Custody of Disabled Adult Son for Questioning Psych Drugs

Medical kidnapping can happen to adults as well as children. Health Impact News has reported a number of adult kidnapping stories over the years. Some involve senior citizens. Others, like this one reported by ABC News in Raleigh, North Carolina, regarding 24-year-old, Ian Bankert, involves the seizure of adult children with mental illness or disability from their parents who have loved, raised, and cared for their children their entire lives. Doctors (mostly psychiatrists) and courts have the power to step in and take over the entire lives of such individuals, isolating them from their families and ultimately deciding every aspect of their care. Ian's parents became concerned about the doctors "overprescribing him with medication," a concern which is shared by many parents and patients, and watchdog groups. Doctors recommended "more medication and long-term care," but his parents, according to ABC11, "instead insisted that a good diet, exercise and faith could restore Ian's sense of self." Ian's story is another in a long list of cases where the financial and academic interests of one group - psychiatrists and public guardians - are pitted against the civil rights and familial interests of individuals and their families. The long arm of the state again overrides the decisions of parents who know and love their son and want what is best for him. They do not believe that locking him away from his life and loved ones and drugging him are the answer.

Child Protective Services in North Carolina using Blackmail to Illegally Seize Children from Families

Associated Press reporters recently exposed a story of illegal practices by Child Protective Services social workers in one North Carolina county. Social workers in Cherokee County have been reportedly coercing parents and taking their children illegally, bypassing the court system by threatening to adopt out their children or throw the parents in jail if they refused to sign paperwork known in NC as a CVA - Custody and Visitation Agreement. The same paperwork is known in other states as a "safety plan" or other such name. Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR) has another name for it - blackmail. Wexler authored an article in response to the AP expose' entitled, "Child welfare, foster care and civil liberties: When CPS resorts to blackmail." Where the AP article leaves room to believe that the actions in Cherokee County are a problem of corruption unique to one area, Wexler's opening salvo leaves no room for that impression: "Reporters in North Carolina exposed the practice of child welfare agencies blackmailing families into giving up all their rights and letting them take away children with no court review at all. The only thing unusual about this is that, in North Carolina, it’s illegal. Elsewhere it’s standard operating procedure."

Grandmother Fights Against Government Child Trafficking in North Carolina

A North Carolina grandmother writes: "Why does CPS have to put a price tag on children's heads? I never thought in my life that child trafficking would be legal in our own government. I don't have much hope anymore and my pain is ongoing since the day they took him. We are just another family that's lost in this corrupted government kidnapping our children." Her grandson has been forcibly taken from her family and currently lives with strangers, through the Child Protective System. His grandmother, Kimberly Deese, is one of thousands of parents and grandparents who view the actions of Child Protective Services as literally being a form of legalized child trafficking. It has been one year since Health Impact News first reported the heartbreaking story of Malakai, a little boy who was medically kidnapped from his family and has suffered abuse and malnutrition since being in state custody.

North Carolina Kidnaps Children from Grandparents because of Medical Kidnap Article

Two children in Greensboro, North Carolina, were seized from their family on Thursday, April 28, and placed into foster care. The only reason given to their guardian grandparents and to their mother Holly Atkins was that Holly told their story to Health Impact News and it was published on their Medical Kidnap website. A tearful Holly Atkins contacted Health Impact News shortly after her children were taken. As the children were led away upset, Cheyenne Paylor and her supervisor sat down at a table with Holly and her mother. Holly says she couldn't believe the words she was hearing Cheyenne say: "We've seen the article on Medical Kidnap, and we are now removing the children [from the grandparents' care] and putting them into a foster home." As her mother began weeping, Holly questioned the social worker: "So, basically, you're removing my children because I am exercising my right to freedom of speech?" Cheyenne Paylor reportedly told her, "Yes," and she made it clear that there was nothing that the family could do about it, and she would listen to no arguments. Holly is very afraid for her children. Baylie has been previously diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a paternal relative allegedly molested her. The children have always been on a good organic, non-GMO diet, and they have food sensitivities. Do the foster parents know this? Are they equipped to feed them food that they will not react to?