Posted on 08/13/2016 5:31:46 PM PDT by digger48
FRANKLIN, OH (WCMH) – Five children were removed from a Cincinnati area home after a boy was found trying to sell his teddy bear to get money for food.
Officer Steve Dunham received a report on Sunday that a seven-year-old boy was peddling the toy outside of a drug store, trying to get enough money to eat.
“He told me he was trying to sell his stuffed animal to get money for food because he hadn’t eaten in several days,” Dunham told WLWT.
Dunham took the boy to an area Subway to get something to eat, then took him to the police department.
“They treated them like their own kids and that’s exactly what law enforcement does in situations like this, is how we would want someone to treat our kids,” said Franklin police chief Russ Whitman.
The parents of the child, Tammy and Michael Bethel, are charged with 10 counts of child endangering.
Police say the seven-year-old boy and his four brothers, ages 11, 12, 15 and 17, lived in squalor. The house was littered with cockroaches, urine, garbage and liquor bottles, WLWT reported.
“Hopefully these officers’ actions change these kids’ lives,” said Chief Whitman. “And maybe change the lives of the parents to become better parents.”
Dunham says he was just doing his job, but he made a new friend in the process. “I came back to check on him and he was hiding and he jumped out to scare me when I came back in the building, he got me real good!”
Tragic. Thank goodness they’ve been rescued.
BUMP!
I like good cop stories.
I wonder if the parents *can* turn their lives around.
Must be worth a prayer. Bowing my head right now.
Unfortunately, the other options are limited. They can put all the boys in foster care, but there are plenty of bad outcomes there, especially for adolescents. Also, the one who is 17 is about to age out of foster care, and then he’s legally on his own. There’s almost no possibility of adoption: the system is designed to put them back with their natural parents, regardless of how long they thrash around in limbo.
Realistically, the best likely outcome is that the state can make the parents get their act together sufficiently to give the younger boys a decent life for a while. The fact that they seem to have two parents together is something.
Money was going for liquor.
I have heard of the wives of alcoholics hiding the money so that the alcoholic could not buy booze.
I could tell you things about an alcoholic ex that would curl your hair.
This is what happens when government takes over the charity business. I bet this family was on all sorts of benefits. Without government-enforced charity, private organizations would have provided this family with the help they need.
Thank God for the Men in Blue.
What would we do with out them?
Their pay is normally low, yet they put themselves out there every day to protect us.
I SALUTE The Men in Blue!!!
“The fact that they seem to have two parents together is something.”
Yep. That sure stood out like a sore thumb, didn’t it?
Prayers up for these kids.
Beau and his former wife (he was widowed) had 14 foster kids over a 20 year period. Only two, that he still has sporadic contact with, have gone on to live moderately crappy lives as adults; quite a few others turned to crime and drugs and the consequences a life like that brings. A few died young; drugs, car wrecks, that kind of sadness...
It’s really heartbreaking how ‘disposable’ children are; either in the womb and, then, outside of it.
I have no answers other than I admire people who at least TRY, as did these Officers. I raised a Stepson and two Nephews; crappy parents, mental illness and drug and alcohol use were rampant in their natal families. ONE of the three is, again, living a moderately crappy life as an adult; the other two are lost causes.
I know a person that works for one of our grocery chains, he says it is common for men and women to sell food stamps, this gets them enough money for drugs or booze.
They will find a way to get their fix.
This is why the states should run the programs and work on a way to control how entitlements are used.
This country sent a man to the moon and back, now you know they could control entitlements.
Little children are the ones that get hurt the most and it is heart breaking.
SMH
I have heard of girlfriends of druggies hiding the money so the druggie couldn't buy drugs. Of course she ended up dead
So do I. One of my friends had two Liberian refugee girls living with her family for a couple of years. They were over 18 and ineligible for foster care or adoption. They had no legal relationship with the girls, but they housed them, provided transportation, helped them get GEDs and community college training programs, etc.
Anyone who helps, whether it's children with no functioning parents, or children whose mother is trying, is pushing back against entropy.
I’ll take him in, and he can keep his teddy bear!
All poverty programs at the federal level should be completely abolished. All it does is breed dependency.
“All poverty programs at the federal level should be completely abolished. All it does is breed dependency.”
I KNOW that you KNOW that it’s all by DESIGN, Right? ;)
I’d like to see that changed, too. But our churches seem to be in such disarray, too, thanks to Socialist Popes and idiots preaching the opposite of what the Bible teaches.
Not sure we can win this one. *SHRUG*
My dad, (long before I was born) worked with his brother-in-law, on pay day my Dad would go with him to cash their checks. He would then give his B-I-L some of the money, leave him at a bar and take the balance to his sister. Alcoholics can be sad, very sad
I call instant BS! A no brainer.
That is an adult scam. I am curious to first learn of the parents' or home adults' CVs!
...rap sheets, for those in Rio Linda...
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