April R. King, 35, is facing a particularly bad criminal case after a police body cam video by Apopka police allegedly showed her using her 4-year-old son to blow into an in-vehicle Breathalyzer so it would start. She is accused of leaving her kids in the car to drink at a bar.
Police say that they were called to a running vehicle outside of a Froggers Grill and Bar with kids in the car. The kids were in the car for about 20 minutes. That might be somehow explained (though the running car is particularly dangerous) but employees said that she left the bar and drove around in the parking lot before going to a business next door to the bar. When police arrived, they say that she was outside of her vehicle and had slurred speech and smelled of alcohol and seemed unsteady. She denied going to the bar or leaving her children. As the police were looking into the matter, the boy went to the front seat and blew on the Breathalyzer.
Her husband not surprisingly revealed that his wife has a serious drinking problem. She was charged with child neglect and taken to the Orange County Jail on a $1,500 bond.
The husband was not in town during the incident and the children were released into the care of a babysitter.
These are unbelievably sad cases. Many of us have known people with alcohol dependency and it takes a terrible toll on these people and their families. The question is how to handle such cases without shattering a family. It should be clear that she cannot have supervision of the children, but the question is what other restrictions must be placed beyond mandatory treatment. It seems likely that a jail stint will be ordered.
How do you think such cases should be handled? Is jail really warranted with such an addiction and, if so, how long is appropriate in such a case.
” The question is how to handle such cases without shattering a family.”
~+~
The first step is to not get Child Protective Services involved.
I believe the defendant was over-charged for this alleged act. The state charged her with a third degree felony of Child Neglect. Here are the statutes I believe the state referenced
However there is a lesser statute that fits this act more precisely:
Some states have statutes relating to leaving child in a motor vehicle then entering a bar or tavern, which is a misdemeanor.
If she was legally intoxicated it might be argued, probably rather weakly, that there could be a criminal attempt to commit DUI in that she surely intended to drive away later with the children inside, and thus could be considered child neglect / reckless endangerment to the children then.
In my opinion an act such as this does not constitute the level of punishment inherent with a felony conviction. Justice would be better served with a misdemeanor charge with few days in jail, mandatory alcohol treatment of some form and probationary requirements to reduce actual risk to her children.
Olly – I wondered about attachment problems with the cycle of foster care, family, foster care . . . Do the kids get to go back to the same foster parents if reunification doesn’t work out? I’ve heard social workers are so overloaded they just can’t do a good job, and it can be a bureaucratic mess. I’ve also heard medical records can get messed up, and foster care kids can get over medicated instead of getting appropriate treatment. And it sounds like they could do a better job of communicating with foster families.
That just breaks my heart that no one has even tried to visit the 10 month old. How is she adjusting?
I am so glad that your dad got sober while he was taking care of you. I hope you were able to heal the damage that must have been done growing up with such challenges. It’s always the kids who get screwed when the parents are addicts and not in recovery.
Nick – that is a truly tragic story. Sometimes survivors punish themselves for the rest of their lives, when all you want is for them to live a good life and be happy. Poor lady, and her poor kids, too. I hope she heals before it’s too late.
They thought my friend’s roommate was assaulted as part of a biker gang initiation, but they could never know for sure, because she had amnesia. She went to a bar on a first date, went to use the rest room, and disappeared. The date was cleared because he was right there the whole time. She was dumped off in the parking lot hours later, the victim of a brutal assault. I visited her in the hospital, and I couldn’t recognize her. Her head had swelled to twice its size. Doctors said her injuries were so bad, it was like she was hit by a car doing 70 mph. But she wasn’t the victim of a car accident. It was one of the most brutal rapes they’d seen. And she was so scared, because she couldn’t remember what happened to her. She could walk right by the people who’d done it, and have no clue that she was in any danger. Police suspected a biker gang, because it was in their territory and this was their MO, but as far as I knew they never proved anything. The damage done psychologically to victims is heartbreaking, doubly so when the victim cannot allow herself a happy life afterward.
One of many thousands of tragic stories of children with addicted parents. Of course there should be court ordered rehab and follow up sobriety at standards before the parent has a chance of getting the kids back. Better that such women take advantage of birth control through PP or one of the community clinics before introducing more children into a terribly dysfunctional home life.
Medi-cal number; not medicaid.
Thanks Karen. The system is overwhelmed and many of the social workers’ caseloads keep them from being anything more than paper managers. We have a 10 month old right now that we’ve had for 2 weeks and when I picked her up we were told she hasn’t had all of her immunizations. We have been trying to connect with the social worker to get the child’s Medicaid number so we can take her to the doctor but that hasn’t happened yet. There have been no requests for visitations that we know of and we are always the last to know of any plan.
The biggest problem we have discovered is the gargantuan effort the system makes to return the children to the birth parents or at least a blood relative. Supposedly statistics show it to be better in the long run but what we’ve seen is the children get moved from one family member to the next and the result is the children develop an attachment disorder.
If you start with the Hillary topic and work your way to this one it is a series of ugly goats on screen. Jeso.
Staying clean is a full time job. The benefits are open ended. But you have to show up for work each day and prepare for the next day each evening.
Addicts have to hit rock bottom before they are ready to go through the process of getting and staying sober. Rock bottom is different for different people, and some people never get there. For one man I know, spending a night in the drunk tank with other drunks vomiting and urinating on him was enough to turn him around, but he hadn’t left a swath of destruction behind him like some people have done. There is no easy answer, because although there is a familial tendency to substance abuse, there is far more to it than genetics. Recovery is difficult physically and psychologically.
A friend has a daughter who was abducted while waiting for the school bus. She was 16 at the time. She was taken to an abandoned house by a motorcycle gang (you can guess the rest), but eventually rescued. Her abductors were never caught. Due to agoraphobia, she didn’t finish school. Now in her early 30’s, she is a train wreck, and has been arrested drunk driving with her 3 kids in the car, she has stripped naked and ran down the street while drunk and damaged strangers’ property for no apparent reason. These are just the arrests we know about. The courts have tried leniency with her, but she hasn’t hit rock bottom yet. All her family can do is avoid being enablers and hope she doesn’t kill herself, her kids or innocent people before she faces her demons. She is in extreme denial and blames everyone else for her alcoholism.
At the end of the day, jail might be a useful tool, not just for punitive purposes, but also for the protection of children and the public at large. As you said, these are sad cases, but when children are involved, the equities change. Courts must protect children, even if it means terminating parental rights. Parents are given many chances to turn their lives around before they permanently lose custody. Some people never recover–have you read about former Senator George McGovern’s daughter?
natacha – unless there is some history of alcoholism in your friend’s family, I am going to suggest that the daughter is using alcohol to drown her pain. Yes, it is everybody else’s fault. She clearly has not gotten enough therapy.
Paul,
My mother eventually got sober but long after I left her. I went to live with my father who was also an alcoholic and during those 2 years I was with him he went into AA and never drank again. He actually worked with Harold Hughes, the ex-governor from Iowa to build rehab centers.
Olly – my mother went to AA to learn how to drink. She thought her problem was that she was not doing it right. She was back drinking in 6 months.
Addiction is so tragic. Whether it’s drugs or alcohol, the addict chooses the addiction over family. I’ve known a lot of alcoholics. It’s such a helpless feeling to watch someone throw their life away with both hands.
I agree that she should not be allowed alone with her children, unsupervised. How does the court accomplish that? Will she be required to move out of the family home? Because otherwise, how can they tell if they are following the court order? She’s a danger to herself, her children, and everyone else on the road until she gets into recovery. And right now, she is incapable of making good decisions.
I wonder if the husband was aware the wife was driving drunk with their kids during the day.
Nick – can the courts sever the parental rights of just one parent, while the couple is living together? Can they force her to move out, or for the husband to move himself or the children out? Would the husband’s judgement be questioned, too, as to whether he knew she was driving drunk with the kids?
No matter what, it’s the kids who get screwed. They’ve been put in danger by a drunk mom, and their home will probably be broken up. I hope there is a loving, responsible family member they can live with. They need a soft place to land. The foster care system is a disaster.
“My suggestion of mandated and monitored sobriety did not mention mandatory rehab.” I agree. Forced rehab never seems to work. When people dry out in jail or forced rehab, they go right back to drinking when they get out. Just give her a choice – keep drinking and you’ll lose your kids, and see if that is rock bottom enough for her to embrace rehab.
Olly, thanks for telling your story, and thank you for being foster parents. Do you have any insight into how the foster care system can be improved?
Olly, God bless you and your wife. When I worked @ the juvenile court in KC, terminating parental right cases were always hotly contested. Foster families are saints on earth. I couldn’t do it. I would get too attached.
Thanks Nick. AA or some other rehab program would be voluntary and should be tied to her reunification plan for full parental rights. My wife and I are foster parents and over the years these children come to us typically from chemically dependent birth parents. The county (and courts) establish a reunification plan with the parents that they have a choice to follow. The most common outcome is the children are taken in by a relative until the birth parent(s) complete their court ordered plan. Eventually the children are reunited with the parents and sadly, the cycle starts all over.
Olly – statistically only 50% of addicts are going to stay clean and/or sober after cleaning up their act. For some AA is a lifetime of meetings.
IW,
Please describe to me the scenario that would have produced a better outcome for the children.
Olly, Thanks for the courage to tell a painful story. My suggestion of mandated and monitored sobriety did not mention mandatory rehab. That is stupid. If this woman CHOOSES to go to AA, great. But, she needs to be clean and sober. However that is achieved should be up to her.
Government is much to blame by the simple fact that it outlaws much safer and preferable drugs….
When I first started commenting here in the Summer of 2012 there was a post about an ALLEGED illegal search of a Florida woman named Leila Tarantino. I had the temerity to say Tarantino was not a good citizen, and just possibly she was not telling the truth. The power structure in place attacked my reasonable possibility. Tarantino filed suit in Federal Court. This case reminded me of that Tarantino debacle and I checked the case on PACER. Well, late last year a Federal Jury, in a civil suit filed by Tarantino, ruled for the Deputy allegedly involved in an improper search after arrest.
Terminating parental rights is one of the most serious actions a government can take. I think that process should be initiated, and held in abeyance. This woman should then be subjected to mandatory alcohol/drug monitoring. The problem w/ booze is it leaves the body in less than 24 hours, so it’s more difficult to detect. But, knowing this ilk, good chance she’s abusing street and/or Rx drugs as well. If, after 3-5 years, this woman remains clean and sober, then the termination process should be waived. If she violates her absolute sobriety mandate, then her parental rights should be terminated. Additionally, the kids should be placed w/ hopefully a responsible family member, or foster home, for the first year of her supervised monitoring.
Nick – she is married.
That’s funny Paul. A stiff jail sentence IS mandatory rehab, just in a different form.
Speaking from experience, mandatory rehab is probably not going to work. A stiff jail sentence might. However, addicts are not always thinking correctly. I think using the kids for the breathalyzer is pretty cool. There is nothing more cunning than an addict looking for a fix.
A jail stint, followed by some serious treatment would seem to be the appropriate response here. She is conniving, shown by her use of her 4 year old. She can’t help herself. She needs a severe slap in the face, perhaps six months in jail but more importantly, serious treatment.
This is where a society that is structured to fix things and prevent problems would come in. Incarceration by itself is only a partial response.
My how times have changed. When I was 12, my drunk, alcoholic mother was smacking me around and I had finally had enough of this nonsense so I ran to the police station to report her. They drove me back home and gave me right back to her.
So what do I think should be done here? DO NOT leave those children with her unsupervised and if she wants to EVER restore her full, parental rights then she must go into an AA program.