Parents accused of sexual abuse for taking pictures of their kids

[Wyatt]

I hope you realize that there are people who find fully clothed people just as sexually as naked people. I can find a naked woman just as sexy as the same gal wearing a space suit. Which means they must be a freak out there that finds that same attraction for fully clothed children.

Does than mean I must now, never take pictures of any kids I may have because some freak may use it for kiddy porn?

It sounds like your taking this too far.

it means if you DO take naked pictures of your kids and bring them to wal-mart to be developed then dont ***** if CPS shows up at your door and wants to know what the hells going on.

this isnt 1890 anymore this is 2009 and your cute little pictures of your babys bum in the bath are capable of being on the net in less time than you can say 'howd they get there' and they arent just 'innocent' baby pictures then but are now kiddy porn.

i dont (as if said before) see all that much harm in a parent taking a picture of their baby in the bathtub. but in THIS case, taking naked pictured of your children in the bath AND at 'play time' and bringing them too wal-mart to be developed, and the pictured obviously being of a such a nature that the wal-mart employee found them alarming enough too report it and the CPS worker was alarmed enough to remove the children from the home , i think the whole argument that it was something 'innocent' like granmas photos of your own naked bum are top be somewhat hollow. i can see the wal-mart people being forced by 'policy' to report any nude children reguardless of context, but i cant see a CPS worker taking kids away from their parents just because of a few innocent bath photos.

there is no doubt that there is more to those pictures than them simply being 'innocent' [photos, and just because charges werent filed that doesnt mean that nothing imporoper wasnt going on, it just means that the parents could have been smart enough to get rid of the other evidence before they got cought.

the FACT is none of us here have seen those photos and we are all making our own assumptions about what they are. the article reads with a certian slant too it so that you would assume that those 'poor parents' were just being abused by the govenment. since we havent seen the photos in question nor heard the CPS side of the case (nor will we) than i say i withhold judgment about the parents being 'innocent victims'. SOMETHING about them caused them to be reported and caused the CPS worker to remove the children. i find it extreamly hard to belive its because they were innocent lil bath time photos.

as many here have said if people were subject to this kind of investigation for taking innocent pictures of their kids half of America would have had their kids taken away from them at some point.

id lay long long LONG odds that if the case ever makes it before a judge it gets tossed. unlike the court of public opinion such as we seem too have here in this thread, Judges deal with things called facts and evidence. something no one in this thread has a shred of outside of the slanted article that makes it sound like Ward and June cleaver were put into Gitmo and water boarded for snaping a shot of the beaver with his hat off.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

I'm sorry. Your saying that the people were stupid to bring them to Walmart to develop.
If they instead went to a private business or used a digital camera and printed out their photos then it's okay. They should have put more thought into who should develop their photos.

 

[thel1st]

absolutely ridiculous, people can't do anything without getting in trouble. and on top of that everyone feels they have to sue someone for every mistake someone else makes and if they are sued you can bet they are going to counter sue for some bullshit reason.

also < the family needs to upgrade to a digital camera

 

[internutt]

This is ridiculous. Parents taking pictures of their kids while the kids are in a bath is very common.

Or due to new laws is everyone who has ever given birth to or looked after a child now a child molester?

 

[Wyatt]

I'm sorry. Your saying that the people were stupid to bring them to Walmart to develop.
If they instead went to a private business or used a digital camera and printed out their photos then it's okay. They should have put more thought into who should develop their photos.

im saying that they were fucking stupid to take em in the first place number 1 and number 2 if they just HAD to have naked pictures of their children then no, taking them to walmart to get them developed wasnt the smartest idea ever. is their anyone here at ALL that couldnt have seen atleast the possability of being reported for child porn? they invited trouble, they found it , now they are bitching about it. bfd i say.

its like the guy who drinks a couple beers in front of a cop before he hops on his lawnmower and drives off. THEN bitching the cops are assholes and hes being picked on when he gets a DWI. or the moron who drove a motorized bar stool and wondered why he got a DWI.

absolutely ridiculous, people can't do anything without getting in trouble. and on top of that everyone feels they have to sue someone for every mistake someone else makes and if they are sued you can bet they are going to counter sue for some bullshit reason.

also < the family needs to upgrade to a digital camera

child porn isnt something to be brushed off and lumped in with the 'ohh that' kind of stuff that truly IS stupid. in my home town their is a law on the books that if your horse shits on main steet and you dont clean it up you can be fined $5. thats an 'ohh that' kinda thing.

naked pictures of kids isnt.

This is ridiculous. Parents taking pictures of their kids while the kids are in a bath is very common.

Or due to new laws is everyone who has ever given birth to or looked after a child now a child molester?

a quick pass across the interwebs shows us that parents (or other adults) taking naked pictures of children having sex is very common too. does that make it ok? by your logic it would seem too.

and there is a long ways from giving birth and looking after a child to taking nude pictures of them.

as soon as you can show me a NEED for naked pictures of your kids at all for any reason than i might be swayed. but if your memory is so bad that you cant recall what your child looked like in the bath without wipping out a photo then you should be in charge of raising kids in the first place. the only real use for naked pictures of children ive seen here is so you can embarass them later on in life.

yeah THATS certianly good parenting now isnt it?

 

[WorldCritic]

People overreact way too easily.

 

[Brokkr]

I figured that most parents did this. I know that my parents have many pictures/videos of me playing in the bath.

 

[Laze]

The state should get sued. Even reporting on something like this without confirmation of actual wrongdoing could be illegal (libel), never mind acting on it. Law enforcers should know better than to raid first and ask questions later in a case like this.

its called probable cause. nude pictures of children are illegal if they contain "graphic or simulated lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person" hard to define what is lascivious though.

your young daughter has on a dress and no diaper and is setting spraddle legged on a chair and you snap a picture of her, is that just a simple pic that you will use to show her future boyfriend how cute she was as a baby, or is it a snap shot that is taken before the real show begins and daddy starts diddling her?

how can you know from the picture alone how 'innocent' it is? it REQUIRES an investigation to decide. if any of you here have accidently (or sought out on purpose) pictures of kiddy porn on the net you know the truth of what im saying. the first pic is any 'innocent' pose that grand-ma may have taken when you were 5 , the next is that same child giving a blow job.

there was probibal cause in my mind to investigate. the 'and at playtime' that is getting left off here is critical to the situation in my mind. reading that it WASNT just 'aww how cute naked babys in the bath' kinda thing and was obvious serious enough to warrent CPS hauling those kids out of the home while they investigated.

and whats MORE, CPS arent all morons they DO have some judgment, and given the case load most of these agencys have id say those cases that they DO check out would almost HAVE to have something unusual about them to even get someones attention in the first place.

the line about 'innocent' bath-time photos is a non argument, they obviously WERENT just innocent bath-time photos since everyone here including myself sees no harm in those types of pictures. there was something more too this that isnt being reported. im not saying that the photos werent in hind sight truly innocent it seems that due too there bieng no charges filed that after an investigation they WERE 'innocent'. but hind sight is allways 20/20 and you cant KNOW by looking at picture of a nude child the context that photo was taken in without an investigation.

the person reporting it wasnt wrong, CPS wasnt wrong for investigating it, and the kids are safer for it. if that means that the parents are embarassed for a little while so what?

better annoyed parents than abused kids. my money says the whole thing gets tossed in court as it should. when we start attacking 'whistle blowers' as well as attacking the agencys charged with protecting the innocent for doing their jobs thats when the guilty go free and we are a worse society for it.

Did you even read what I posted?

1. I'm saying the whistle-blowers (store employees) did the right thing. I'll say it again - the whistle blowers acted just as they should have.

2. I'm not saying that the authorities were wrong for investigating. I'm saying they were wrong to immediately raid the residence and take the kids away without actually doing an INVESTIGATION (your buzzword) first.

3. You have no idea what was actually in the photos so stop making things up. You assume "probibal" cause because why? The authorities are always omniscient and right? A picture of kids in the bathtub automatically shows pedophilia?

The job of law enforcement is to investigate crimes and take proper action, not jump to near-baseless conclusions. Again, a simple records search would have showed that the people getting the photos developed were parents of kids that matched the ages of the kids in the photos, and that alone kills most of your "probibal" cause.

Remember that the parents were just getting their photos developed - they weren't doing anything suspicious with them like, say, posting them on a public venue.

Also, to the people defending pedophiles by comparing them to homosexuals or people of other races, let me state something clearly:

1. Racism was deemed wrong because the mistaken belief that minority races were mentally and/or physically inferior was deemed wrong, nearly proven wrong at this point.

2. Ditto with homosexuals, except the myths about them being the sole carriers of certain STDs like AIDS was also disproven, and the religious nuts who quote Sodom and Gomorrah or Leviticus from the Bible in order to argue against them have been mostly disreputed, ironically often by their theologist colleagues.

3. Pedophilia is wrong because children are not developed enough mentally and physically to actually understand or willfully/safely participate in sexual conduct. This has NOT been disproven, and is widely understood, unlike the myths that blacks/gays were mentally inferior. Not only that, but the lack of capability in a child to make such a choice can scar them permanently, making them feel worthless ("damaged goods") for having been taken advantage of.

There is no comparison, scientifically. Pedophilia is not an "alternate lifestyle", it's taking advantage of a helpless being at their expense for your own pleasure, and it's WRONG.

edit: Also, "better annoyed parents than abused kids." You don't think taking the kids away from their parents for over a month and insinuating that the family was engaged in pedophilia didn't hurt the kids/family? "Annoyance" is a large understatement.

 

[Wyatt]

Did you even read what I posted?

1. I'm saying the whistle-blowers (store employees) did the right thing. I'll say it again - the whistle blowers acted just as they should have.

2. I'm not saying that the authorities were wrong for investigating. I'm saying they were wrong to immediately raid the residence and take the kids away without actually doing an INVESTIGATION (your buzzword) first.

3. You have no idea what was actually in the photos so stop making things up. You assume "probibal" cause because why? The authorities are always omniscient and right? A picture of kids in the bathtub automatically shows pedophilia?

The job of law enforcement is to investigate crimes and take proper action, not jump to near-baseless conclusions. Again, a simple records search would have showed that the people getting the photos developed were parents of kids that matched the ages of the kids in the photos, and that alone kills most of your "probibal" cause.

Remember that the parents were just getting their photos developed - they weren't doing anything suspicious with them like, say, posting them on a public venue.

yeah i read what you wrote obviously. i just missunderstood a part of it. when you said reporting ON i read reporting IT. now thats cleared up lets move on.

the CPS had probibal cause to 'raid' (your buzzword) the home due to the nude pictures they had in hand as evidence. nothing more need be required to take action. nude pictures of children if they contain "graphic or simulated lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person" are child porn period. even if they were intended to be simple and innocent bath time photos.

seems clear to me that the pictures were of such a nature that the CPS workers decided to act rather than to do a more simple Q&A session first with the parents.

and as a counter to your sarcasim about how "The authorities are always omniscient and right", you seem to be reaching the conclusion that all authoritys are morons who cant find their asses with both hands and a flashlight. something that i find hard to belive. untill you can show me a reason WHY the CPS workers would pick these parents seemingly out of a hat and then seek to terrorize them for a month or more for no sound reason at all other than i guess 'because they can' ill continue to assume that they WERENT total morons and that those 'innocent pictures' were of such a nature to warrent extream steps of removal rather than simple Q&A to start with.

and as i said before .......... just because no charges were filed doesnt mean nothing was going on. as to the parents 'reputation' i couldnt care less. as of right now i think of them as total morons at a minimum for taking naked pictures of their kids to walmart to begin with. as for anything further they may or may not have done ...... they get the benifit of the doubt. if the CPS took the extream step of removing the children and then gave them back then im content that nothing horrible was going on, and im inclined to think it was a case of a slight over reaction on the CPS side. but again ill say that its better to have your CPS over react when casses of possable child abuse are going on than have them under react. i dont see that the parents 'repution' was hurt at all from this. hell im on the side that DOESNT just say 'those poor people' and i dont think much about them other than how stupid they were in just taking the pics to walmart to being with. and lord knows stupidity of that nature isnt a crime otherwise most of the population of the world should be locked up including you and i.

and finaly i think this whole 'article' itself is more cause for debate than what it contains. the article itself lacks anything really news worthy. as i read this whole article i come to the conclusion it couldnt be any more slanted if they worked at it. the only real FACTS that are presented is that these parents had nude pictures of their kids developed at walmart. they got reported to CPS, CPS did an investigation after removing the children and the children were returned and now the parenst are suing all and sundry.

now all the rest of it being slant i read the thread replys and see that most of the people here rather than think logicaly about the scant nature of the facts presented choose rather to run off half cocked with wild statments about those 'poor parents' and the 'abuse of government agencys' and how just those parents are to sue everyone for what IS after all their OWN stupidity.

but of corse this whole chat isnt about wahts RIGHT or about REAL justice, its about the 'OMG if they did it too those poor people they can do it to me'. everyone here can see themsevles in the parents, everyone here either has taken or knows someone who has taken innocent pictures of children in a bathtub and no one here wants to take the chance of running up against the law because of waht really is a harmless thing generaly. but i would say to you stop arguing for YOURSELF and just think about whats really importiant , the children. these kids COULD have been abused rather than attacking the CPS for doing their investigation be thankful that they DID it. instead of defending these parents blindly simply because you can see yourself in them, think about your OWN actions as well as theirs in thinking that taking naked pictures of children for ANY reason let alone something as totaly ignorant as future embarassment material really is.

in the end its not aobut you, or I, or the parents of the CPS, its about those children who were protected from a fait that could be worse than death. just because it wasnt doesnt mean that we as a society and those watchdogs we appoint to safeguard our children were wrong for seeing to it that that was NO chance of abuse going on.

think about what ive said.

 

[Seanchaidh]

the CPS had probibal cause to 'raid' (your buzzword) the home due to the nude pictures they had in hand as evidence. nothing more need be required to take action. nude pictures of children if they contain "graphic or simulated lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person" are child porn period. even if they were intended to be simple and innocent bath time photos.

Baby bath pictures are not "lascivious exhibition."

 

[faceless chick]

Wyatt: didn't YOUR parents ever take pics of you as a baby naked?
Everyone else seems to have some of these lying around.

It's not stupid, it's normal.
It's society that went batshit insane and forgot that this sort of thing's been going on since photos were invented.
I highly doubt 80% of people are pedophiles waiting to strike, but the media seems to like saying that.

I don't think the family even suspected ppl were so uptight about smth THEIR OWN PARENTS DID LOTS OF TIMES to get them in trouble with the law.

Did you ever tear a label from your mattress that said "do not remove under penalty of law" and hid under your bed for fear the FBI might come crashing through your window and arrest you for it?
I don't think so.

And here's another thing: parents LOVE taking photos of their kids as babies They're their pride and joy.Parents don't care the kids will be embarrassed when they're older, they're only gonna be cute a few years,so take the chance.

I don't think you'd like it if it happened like with my grandma: her 1st kid died at the age of 1 and her 1st and only picture is in the coffin before burial.
I don't think parents would've liked to see a pic like this as their only reminder of their child.


Conclusion: PC needs to be burned, ppl need to calm the fuck down, the police actually has to do its job, the media has to STFU about crimes since it leads to all of the above.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Wyatt: didn't YOUR parents ever take pics of you as a baby naked?
Everyone else seems to have some of these lying around.

It's not stupid, it's normal.
It's society that went batshit insane and forgot that this sort of thing's been going on since photos were invented.
I highly doubt 80% of people are pedophiles waiting to strike, but the media seems to like saying that.



Conclusion: PC needs to be burned, ppl need to calm the fuck down, the police actually has to do its job, the media has to STFU about crimes since it leads to all of the above.

Thank you, the main problem that despite paedophiles being a tiny, almost insignificant percentage of society, (not saying they're not a danger, just that there's not one lurking in every park bush), the news channels and newspapers want you to fear them and spend every waking moment worrying that there might be one, out there wanting to touch your child.

Whereas, and here come the figures freshly pulled out of my statistically accurate arse, approximately 0.000003% of all of humanity has never been attacked by a paedophile. Papers would be better off attacking trees for toppling over and falling on children, as it's probably a more likely danger.

Again, I don't believe there's more pedos around, just more knowledge of their existence.
I redirect people to the Brass Eye special and the surrounding outrage about it, if you need any more proof that the media is idiotic about this subject.

 

[Laze]

Not going to quote the huge wall of text that Wyatt posted.

Wyatt, you can't really spell or form a coherent sentence, and therefore your argument that somehow you know so much about law enforcement that they absolutely must have seen something that didn't get reported - it just doesn't convince me.

You're pulling a dictionary definition of child pornography without realizing that the "porn" part comes in, with any pornography, when the "lascivious parts of the body blah blah blah" is distributed for people to entertain themselves with. The parents didn't distribute it.

And I understand that you believe the children should be protected. What I'm saying is that the authorities should have done a proper investigation and actually done what most people call "police work" instead of a raid without evidence. This would have both prevented potential pedophilia and avoided having to take the kids away from innocent parents for over a month, which is the optimal result for protecting the kids.

I'm not claiming that the authorities acted like morons. I'm claiming that they acted like very intelligent, organized groups that enjoy power and often act on that power in order to justify keeping it. And that's OK when the acts are justified, but scary when raids start happening without evidence.

To the posters above responding to Wyatt and co., I totally agree, the public fear of pedophilia is totally out of proportion to the actual amount of pedophilic acts.

 

[Wyatt]

Baby bath pictures are not "lascivious exhibition."

well now that depends on the context of the photo doesnt it? and since none of us have SEEN the photos than we cant make any kind of a judgment, either for or against.

Wyatt: didn't YOUR parents ever take pics of you as a baby naked?
Everyone else seems to have some of these lying around.

no acutaly they didnt, but then again my parents didnt need too snap a picture of everything i did as a child. though i will say (and have said) that i dont actualy find anything wrong with 'grandmas bathtime photos'

ill say this again for your thickheads that just dont seem to get the basic point here. this issue isnt a PC one its about the welfair and safty of children. there is no such thing as 'going to far' when it comes to stoping child abuse. its not about being politicaly correct its about stoping an entire childhood filled with abuse and an entire lifetime of pain because of it.

i agree that naked picrtures of babys in a bathtub are generaly harmeless. MY issue is with those times when they ARENT harmeless and are a sign of abuse. and since taking naked pictures of children has no benifit what so ever other than future embarassment of your child then we can simply say dont fucking do it. then we dont ahve to have arguments like this one. and the people taking pictures of children arent given the benifit of the doubt and arent able to hide behind vague legal definitions.

child abuse needs to be stoped period, and if part of stoping it means that grandma doesnt get to snap that pic of your cute lil bum in the bath than so be it. if part of sto0ping it means that 'innocent parents' get investigated for snaping pictures of their kids and taking them too wal-mart and those pic being of such a nature as to alarm both the wal-mart worker and the local CPS to the extent taht CPS pulls the children from the home than so be it.

all the argumenst i see here are along the same lines of saying we cant outlaw nuclear weapons because the workers who make them will lose their jobs. your saying we cant put a stop to child porn because granma wont have that pic to embarass you with when your older.

Not going to quote the huge wall of text that Wyatt posted.

Wyatt, you can't really spell or form a coherent sentence, and therefore your argument that somehow you know so much about law enforcement that they absolutely must have seen something that didn't get reported - it just doesn't convince me.

You're pulling a dictionary definition of child pornography without realizing that the "porn" part comes in, with any pornography, when the "lascivious parts of the body blah blah blah" is distributed for people to entertain themselves with. The parents didn't distribute it.

And I understand that you believe the children should be protected. What I'm saying is that the authorities should have done a proper investigation and actually done what most people call "police work" instead of a raid without evidence. This would have both prevented potential pedophilia and avoided having to take the kids away from innocent parents for over a month, which is the optimal result for protecting the kids.

I'm not claiming that the authorities acted like morons. I'm claiming that they acted like very intelligent, organized groups that enjoy power and often act on that power in order to justify keeping it. And that's OK when the acts are justified, but scary when raids start happening without evidence.

To the posters above responding to Wyatt and co., I totally agree, the public fear of pedophilia is totally out of proportion to the actual amount of pedophilic acts.

if your not smart enough to understand what im saying then dont bother replying anymore since your clearly not smart enough to have a conversation with me in the first place, you can take your spelling snobery and stick it right up your ass as far as i care.

now the 'dictionary definition' isnt anything of the kind. ive taken my statment right from 18 U.S.C. Chapter 110, the US laws that prohibits its. and no place in that law does it say anything about it haveing to be "distributed for people to entertain themselves with". child porn is illegal even if no one but the person taking the picture ever looks at it. its illegal even if the person TAKING the picture never looks at it and leaves the film in the camera undeveloped. its the act of taking the picture of a child in a lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area that is illegal , NOT whats done with the pictures as you would ahve us belive.

now once again you ignore or arent smart enough to grasp the point in between your trips to the spell checker, but ill try this agian. the authoritys had evidence in hand. the photos themselves where that evidence and were obviously of such an alarming nature that the CPS workers were compelled to act on THAT evidence ALONE and remove the children. nakid pictures of children are probable cause enough to warrent removal of children from their home.

you would ahve us belive that its a good idea if you pull someone over in car and their eyes are glassy and you can smell pot that they should be left free to go untill a 'proper investigation' can be conduected i guess. they should be free to drive home untill the blood tests come back? please .........

and fianly the optimal result for protecting the kids is doing just what the CPS did, remove the children and stop any potential abuse from going forward while the 'investigation' you call for was conducted. i ask you this, what if it turned out the parenst WERE abusing their children, would it be a good idea to give those parents a warning so that they could destroy evidence or even take the children and leave the area? would it be 'optimal' for the children to LEAVE them in the abuse for even a month more while CPS conducted the 'investigation' your howling for?

i say no. and im willing to bet a large chunk of cash that the courts will say no too. now you can toss as much bullshit up as you like about the 'powerhungry system' all you want but its just taht, bullshit. untill you can show me WHY the CPS case workers chose too pick THIS couple out of what is most likly tens of not hundereds of reported cases each week to abuse their power on then your just spewing nonsense at this point.

who does this agency have to justify keeping it TOO? do you have some information that the rest of us lack about this agency being under threat of being shutdown or something unless they started showing more arrests, or child removals, or catching more pedo in the act? was their job cuts in the works if their conviction numbers werent improved? was the government going to cut off funding if they didnt start tossing more 'innocent parents' in jail? if you have information like this than by all means share it because it WOULD be relivent, but so far you have just posted noise.

i think you need to go back to working on improving your spell checker and leave the debates too those that can actualy think about an issue and not just spew nonsence and call it informed opinion.