Chapter 20/My most emotional story

Dear Glen Loyd:

You were the only one who took the time to say, "I care," in all the letters we wrote for help for our children that Protective Services is stealing. Although you were unable to do anything for us, you at least took the time to phone us that you cared.

We know we have lost our children for good. God knows the Mother was a good mother and done no harm to her children.

We'll always love them and miss them forever!

Thanks again for your phone call.

Grandmother and Mother

"They are taking our children from us this afternoon! Can you help?" This plea came into my helpline at TV-11 in Green Bay. Brown County Social Services was going to take away the couple's two little children because of neglect.

The couple was honest with me, admitting to drug problems but said they loved their children and were not going to let anyone take them away. At one point, they said they were going to run from Social Services and leave town.

I advised them not to do this. It would just be harder on the children. "Why don't you cooperate, try to turn your lives around, and get the kids back?" I suggested.

They said they didn't know what to do. They didn't even have food.

I said I would come to their home and bring my photographer.

I bought some burgers and fries for the family. The kids were about three and four and didn't know what was going on. After lunch they played and seemed to be happy, but the parents were in bad shape physically and emotionally. And they were sick at the thought of losing their kids.

I continued to encourage them to cooperate with Social Services, but I was to learn that Social Services needed improvement in the way it handled these situations.

Later that afternoon, Social Services arrived with a police officer. I had a skilled cameraman with me that day and he turned on his camera and left it on.

The kids got scared and started clinging to their parents. After some false starts, the Social Services workers finally ripped the children out of their parents' arms and took them to a station wagon. The cameraman recorded this heart-wrenching scene and then got close-ups of the kids in the car looking back and screaming for their parents. The cameraman stayed on the car until it drove out of sight. Then he turned around to capture the pathetic parents wailing on their front porch, and he kept filming until the wails turned to whimpers.

Why would Social Services handle things this way? Couldn't they make it a more humane transition? It wasn't good for the children to be ripped away from their parents. And it was not good to leave the parents in this devastated condition. Sure the parents were at fault, but eventually they
would get the children back. Why wasn't there some kind of immediate counseling for the parents?

I called a clergyman to come and console the parents.

When I got back to the station, I conferred with the news director and executive producer about the story and the emotional scene we had on film. They give me extra time on the newscast and I let the story unfold uncut from the time Social Services ripped away the children until the parents cried on the porch watching their children going away in the car.

It was the most emotional story I had every done, and the phone lines at the TV station were jammed for days with people commenting about the story. Brown County Social Service workers came off so badly they stopped talking to TV-11 reporters for months.

It was a controversial story, but I would do it again the same way.