Posted on 05/01/2002 3:33:06 PM PDT by RGSpincich
Kids told police dad hit daughter in head
By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press 5/1/02 5:21 PM
ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) -- Brian and Ruth Christine's daughters told police that their father hit one of them in the head, causing her to fall down steps in the converted city bus they called home and cut her forehead, spreading "blood all over," a detective testified Wednesday.
Asked why he hadn't taken his daughter Lydia, then 3, to the hospital, Brian Christine "told me he was an Eagle Scout and he knew how to treat an injury," testified Grants Pass police detective Dan Evans.
"He told me his children were God's children, and if God chose to strike them down with lightning, that was his choice," Evans said.
The testimony came during a hearing on a defense motion to suppress evidence gathered when police first contacted the Christines in their bus on July 31, 2000, while it was parked at the library in Grants Pass in the course of their travels around the country.
The Christines, both 29, are on trial in Douglas County Circuit Court on charges of kidnapping, robbery, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and custodial interference.
The state alleges that a year after social workers took the three girls into foster care to protect them from their parents, Brian Christine took the girls at gunpoint from a state social worker, met up with his wife and a friend, and escaped to Montana, where they were found within days.
In the course of pretrial motions, defense attorney Edgar Steele told Judge Robert Lasswell that he intended to present a "choice of evils defense," arguing that the Christines were rescuing their children from a state agency that was out of control.
Steele described the couple as fundamentalist Christians, who home-schooled their children and believed the state should not interfere with family life unless children were being harmed.
"They have seen their children taken to a hospital, stripped and examined in a sexual way," Steele said in describing his case. "The damage done to their children far exceeds anything they have done."
The Christines were allowed to see their children only once under supervision in the 12 months from the time they were taken into foster care and Aug. 1, when they took them from state social workers, Steele said.
"We've got a pair of parents that saw a local agency of government totally out of control -- acting illegally, acting immorally," Steele said. "They got (the children) out of harm's way."
According to Evans, police initially contacted the Christines after receiving an anonymous phone call reporting children who appeared malnourished. The family had been traveling the country in a city bus converted into a motor home, and had spent the past 45 days living at parks in the Grants Pass area.
Brian Christine sold computer software on an internet auction site, and routinely stopped at libraries to use the computers to check on his sales, Evans said.
Evans said four police officers were outside the Christines' bus in the parking lot behind the Josephine County Library when he was called in because he investigates allegations of child abuse.
Brian Christine sat in the driver's seat, his arms on the steering wheel, while Evans talked to the girls in the back. Miriam lay on her back, one arm over her head. Bethany and Miriam sat against a bed. Bethany was reading a book.
All the girls were very skinny, quiet and subdued, particularly Miriam, the youngest, Evans said. Lydia had a bandage on her forehead that had bled through and discoloration around one eye, he testified.
"I asked Lydia how she got the ow-ee," Evans said. "She told me she fell. Bethany was glancing at Brian. She said, `No you didn't.' Lydia glanced at Brian sitting up front and said, `Babba did it.' She told me blood was all over and it hurt very bad and she cried. I asked who Babba was and she pointed to Brian," Evans said.
"She said she was at the front of the bus and she peed. She said Babba was real mad," he testified.
Evans said when he asked Brian Christine if he had hit his daughter, he nodded, adding that he lost his temper and "tapped" her on the back of the head with his open hand and she fell.
Evans said he arrested Brian Christine on an assault charge and social workers took the three girls to a hospital.
He does seem to have a somewhat tenuous attachment to reality...
And a fixation on threads about parents who knock their children around.
I think that means he'll contact Demidog.
Tell me about busing---to begin with...what was that all about!
What's next?
POOBALL...
Please try to put your statements in some sort of context--it makes it easier for those of us who can't read minds to figure out what you're saying.
13 posted on 5/1/02 2:56 PM Hawaii-Aleutian by Poohbah
Where do you get your thinking--operations--orders from...janet reno?
Tough question...busing?
The Christines fired their court appointed attorney for this? From plea bargain to bargain basement. This is the kind of defense that would make the Grants Pass crowd proud. Of course, Brian and Ruth will have to serve the time but, hey, it's for the cause.
Believe it or not Steele uses the same rhetoric in his presentations to the court.
Brian says he didn't lose his temper and that Lydia wet the bed in an act of defiance. He just "tapped" her and then she lost her balance. She fell and received a minor cut according to Brian.
Ruth says she never saw Brian hurt any of the kids and that they didn't withhold food from their kids as a form of discipline.
The girls may have to testify to get to the truth in the mistreatment trial.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand how you know this. Do you have some sort of inside information that the rest of us don't enjoy? Are you assuming that the state officials are telling the absolute truth and that these parents are guilty as charged?
The rest of us, even those of us who live in Oregon, pretty well have to rely on what we get from the press and from Ed Steele, both sources with an ax to grind. While I have a little knowledge of how Oregon's Children's Services Agency operates and therefore very little confidence in them, I will admit that they might be right in this case. Still, I don't have any real evidence that I can quote and unless you do, you're as bad as the media twits that you rely on. So please, let us know how you can be so certain of the guilt of these parents.
It's lame enough, but not lunatic enough.
Brian and Ruth Christine's daughters told police that their father hit one of them in the head, causing her to fall down steps in the converted city bus they called home and cut her forehead, spreading "blood all over," a detective testified Wednesday.Asked why he hadn't taken his daughter Lydia, then 3, to the hospital, Brian Christine "told me he was an Eagle Scout and he knew how to treat an injury," testified Grants Pass police detective Dan Evans.
What do you think, DD?
What the heck? The kid pees the bed and it's "an act of defiance"? Brian takes a pretty simple thing quite personally and quite badly. He "swats" her head and she hits it on a step but he says it is she who loses her balance?
As any parent can tell Brian, they grow up and get real cases of defiance. Luckily these girls are safely away from this nut for when they hit those years.
put stars of David on them and round them up--sieg hiel!
Only if they continue to blame the kid for their own bad behavior. Wetting the bed is not an act of defiance. Smacking her around is a proven loser maneuver . He comes to court nearly two years later and tries to place the blame of this child's injury squarely on the shoulders of the child. He shows no remorse and accepts no responsibility for the injury. He has had two years to figure this stuff out and he still doesn't have a clue.
It's called "not guilty." If you want to equate a not guilty plea with "accepts no responsibility" that's your call. But not everyone is silly enough to buy it as proof of guilt.
How he handled the situation with his daughter (shit happens sometimes) and how remorseful he was is not a matter for the state. We're talking about a one-time event and there is no evidence presented that this incident caused any serious damage.
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