Michigan Father Killed in Marijuana Child Removal Incident

So...Here I am dead...because I pulled a knife on the police...Stupid decsion I guess because I am dead. I abused many people including my son. I smoked marijuana, I assaulted people and I attacked a police officer because of all option I had...like not pulling a knife, listening to orders, obeying police officers commands and doing this the right way all seemed so stupid. So instead I pulled a knife, lunged at police and am now no longer. So the moral to the story is...dont smoke weed, dont abuse people, dont put your kid in harms way and listen to the police....peace out.

Just remember, all a cop has to do, is say you pulled a pocket knife on them, and they can kill you.

Do you feel safer?

If you believe that, I have a bridge in Manhattan I'd like to sell you.

O'Bummer is right...and I voted for my own oppression I guess...he was supposed to be so cool...right...

Sorry but with all the experts that are on here how many of you actually know the deputy involved in the shooting? Because I do and I'd trust him with my life any day and I do not say that about all cops. There's good cops and bad cops, he's one of the good ones. He doesn't show up to calls hoping to shoot someone, or beat them up, or any of that other crap you all would love to fling. For him to make the decision he did I can guarantee there was a knife and that he was certain his life was in danger. He wouldn't pull his gun if his life weren't in danger. So judge him all you want, but unless you know him and have worked with him on emergency scenes (I'm in EMS) you're nothing but a pawn played by the anti-government sentimentalists who have nothing better to do with their time but find fault in everyone else's life to draw attention away from the fault in their own. 

sounds like Mom may have made the pot accusation, 

Just because CPS says something, doesn't make it a fact or anything close to the truth.  

In fact, I have documented many CPS abuses when I became sick with my son, and applied for assistance, and school to go to grant writing classes.  They came to my home, and claimed they smelled marijuana, and saw a hand rolled marijuana cigarette on my counter.  I often clear my home with dried sage smoke, and tobacco hand rolled is not marijuana.  However, that's what they said.  No drug test, they didn't confiscate, nor did they call the cops when they found it.  However, they can make anything up, and take your kid to get you tied into the court system.  Fight till death, and they'll take your kid then too.  Criticize them, they'll investigate you forever.  

And yet in many cases where children are in actual danger nothing is done. Case in point, I went through years of emotional and physical abuse, and still watch as my younger siblings endure the same, but since we have no "proof" nothing will get done. I've called every authority I can think of and still, my little sister lives will a vile bi-polar drunk. 

The authorities need to get their priorities straight. Now instead of having a dad who occasionally may or may not smoke a little pot, that three year old will have to live with the trauma of watching his dad shot, for reasons he won't understand for years, if ever. 

Did they not stop to think that this man lives in an apartment, and that depending on the quality of the construction, certain smells can drift from unit to unit? I have a downstairs neighbor whom I've never met, yet I know without a doubt smokes pot because I can smell it in my own apartment.

As for everything else this article discusses, all I can say is this: they may have smelled pot, but I smell a lot of bullshit.

I know exactly what happened-

He and his ex-wife are embroiled in a custody battle - notice the expert reporting/editing of the article NOT mentioning the ex-wife at all.

The CPS people get an "anonymous" call (yeah right - was the ex wife or her mother) that he is using drugs in front of the child.

The Neo-Gestapo i.e. our police are summoned to support the other Neo-Gestapo i.e. the CPS to confiscate child - WITHOUT TRIAL SOLELY ON CHARGES OF "MARIJUANA".

"Our" police force goes over there with the typical attitude of most American cops "I AM the law"  - when confronted by a father not wanting to give up his son (can you imagine that?) they kill him.

Police falsify reports of a knife. Are there any non-police or non-government workers there?

NO - there are only police witnesses and CPS "witnesses" i.e. we will NEVER know the truth.

These are the workings of a police state - WAKE UP PEOPLE! The US is a police state already!

California is even WORSE! Your child does not belong to you! He/she belongs to the government and any number of meddling therapists,mediators,judges,cops, counsellors.

A very sad indicator of the what our country has become.

There are so many examples of this in the US from coast to coast - 

In California last year a couple were awarded over 1m (later reduced to 300k because of budget constraints!) because of WRONGFULL REMOVAL of the child.

Remember a couple of years ago in Florida(?)(not sure but East coast it was) the boy named Adolf Hitler got removed from his family too. They had no justification except his parents choice of name. That is not justification in my book- that is called GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE! Someone had a problem with it and as usual under the ruse of "safety" child must be removed.

SAD SICK AMERICA/NS

in ohio you can beat yur child all you want, but just have pot in the home and childrens services will pull them out so quick ur head'll spin.

America, land of the free; where if someone decided to tell the cops you "smell like pot," the police will take your child, and if you protest, they will murder you.

All over a little green plant that has never harmed anyone. For shame.

I just read the story and can't believe my eyes. Ok how can CPS get a order to remove a child on a cop saying they smelled marijuana??? Didn't they have to drug test him first, and then find their findings, has to be true,  then go in front of a judge to ask for removal. So they're removing kids on suspicion? Second he didn't even have what the cops said he had in his system. And the cops had tasers and choose their guns? ERRRRRRrrrrrr this is America, So what if he smelled like weed, now prove he used it before you go and take people's kids, and for weed, come on it's not Crack. Isn't weed legal in Michigan Anyways, don't they have the medical marijuana card system....I need to say that the cops started all this, and I hope they're happy with themselves when they're burning for eternity. Where's the justice America,,,, the cops, CPS, and the Judge that issued the removal are all wrong. Even Stevie Wonder can see that this is an outrage of massive proportions...Dirty Cops win this one, but that means they're back at work waiting to do this to someone else...

I'm sorry but after reading the last few posts I'm ashamed to call myself an American if it means being put in the same category as the likes of you people. SERIOUSLY!!! Let me tell you something about cops:

1. Every job duty requires them to piss someone off and they know this. No matter what they do if they're doing their jobs someone is going to be upset.Even when they're playing the protector you think that criminal likes them when they arrest the person? Doubt you could handle that kind of pressure!

2. They see absolutely horrific things and the worst in mankind, yet they get up every morning to go to work and fight for it. The things they see you couldn't handle I can fricking guarantee it unless you're an emergency worker. Even the ER see cleaned up versions of what they see!

3. They're berated and called names just because of the uniform they wear. How'd you like to be called some of the names you people call cops? You wouldn't like it would you?

4. People who don't know them from a whole in the wall believe the absolute worst in them even when they as an individual are some of what's best about this country!

5. If you defend yourself that's ok, but if a cop does it, it's a murder and there's a cover up and the cop should have pulled a taser (only a retard would say that when a gun or knife are involved by the way) when you yourself would piss your pants if you had, had to face that attack the cop did and walked away from.

YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES!

You have no idea what really occured on that scene! You don't know the deputy involved or what really happened! You're making snap judgements based on your own personal biases and beliefs that you should be able to fry your brains all you want without anyone saying a word about it. The cops were called originally for a domestic, not pot! Learn to read every word and not just the parts you want to in the news article! Oh and attempting to post the address of the deputy should constitute assault whether the address is correct or not the person who posted that should rot in a jail cell for attempting to endanger the deputy and his family, regardless of if the address is correct.

So no one tries turning that around into a racist statement that I made... The point I was making was you shouldn't bring a part of history that inflammatory into a conversation when that part of history is over and done with. Martin Luther King was one of my childhood hero's because he stood up for what was right even when it was evident doing so was putting him and his family in danger. Using that on a subject like this disrespects the sacrifices those peaceful protesters made to ensure that future generations would be treated equally. We've come a long way from the 60's-70's who are you to spit on and disrespect centuries of other people's hard work by using it in a perverse manner over an argument that at the end of the day makes no major change in the world and not only that isn't going to change the facts.

John was cleared because he did what he had to to go home that night and if someone pulled a knife on me and I had the choice between a taser and a gun, I'd make the same choice! Reddie forced him to make a choice and Reddie lost because he fought his battle the wrong way. You dont pull a knife on anyone carrying a gun unless you expect to get shot and if they dont shoot you, shame on them for not defending themselves and their families right to see them come home alive!

This is not isolated. This is exactly the same situation I encountered regarding "Domestic Incident" reports and calls, and it has happened to almost every family I know. Police use these words to violate our rights too often, and now they take lives with it. I hope this killer feels guilty for the rest of his life, which he does not deserve to live. And he keeps his badge?? Sick. Disgust, shame, and rage. That's all I can say.

All these people with special exceptions to criminal law.

CPS can say anything they want to steal your child.

Object to it and you'll get shot .. in a justified way.

Can you keep such people from kidnapping your child? No you can't.

Citizens have zero ability to protect their children from kidnapping by the state.

And every official has every other officials back. They would have their back for any crime that is being committed.

How do the citizens of Michigan protect themselves from an out of control local government?

Warning us what it will be like if the commies take over ..

NONE of the officers posting here comment about the expectation of being able to raise our children in our homes without fear of them being taken from us.

There was no real due process here. Just a flip, unproven, statement is all that was required to steal this child.

Police officers were there. They SHOULD have been there to protect the child and their parent from a government that has become abusive.

In the United States, no parent should have to fear a lack of justice to produce the result of their child being removed .. on pure whim ..

The enforcement of whim should have officers ready to puke. Who are these pencil pushers that can take our kids from us?

HOW DO YOU STOP AN ABUSIVE GOVERNMENT? Our founding fathers figured it out. They wrote that it is our patriotic duty to object.

Why do those who are sworn to protect us fail to object? Instead they post here that this abuse is proper to use against a citizen of this land.

If it is, how can a marijuana smell be cause for any legal action?

In the last 20 years officer safety is the only thing that matters.  I grew up watching Joe Friday and many more like talk suspects into custody.  Now its twitch and you die.  And police get a few days paid leave. 

This incident shows why people no longer trust police.  They have become the occupying army of today.

Jim

"someone" smelt marijuana so the authorities decided the child needed to be taken?

God, our heavenly Father will make the United States pay for their crimes, Justice shall prevail, fill your cup up with injustice, and justice shall follow, for Justice will wait till the cup is fill, and then will rain down her rage, for no seed that is planted goes unnoticed, it shall spring forth and bear fruit.

SHAMEFUL behavior by the DA, CPS, and police. It is beyond words the pain they have caused an innocent family. I hope they never sleep another peaceful night; I hope they burn in hell. THEY are the evil in this world. Shame on your souls. 

ACAB

This makes me sick..the corruption has to end..why i ask doesnt the president stop this?  hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I do not think any illegal substances that can be ingested second hand should be around children. I am sure the pot heads and Marijuana supporters are going to yell "conspiracy" or "System failure" or "Framed". but the fact still remains, Illegal practices in front of children is immoral. I am not anti Weed, but I am a believer that used out of its medicinal context, it is a useless substance that destroys intellect and common sense. CPS should not have gotten involved, but they should have fined the daylights out of the guy to stop this irrational behavior. The child should not suffer for the actions of the parent.

Realistically speaking this man was set up by his ex significant other, they made an allegation of him smoking marijuana in front of his child, the police do not simply make that assumption from merely smelling marijuana at a scene, I would say that the use of lethal force by a trained police officer in close proximity with tasers already drawn seems a bit odd to me, you are telling me that they had enough time to holster their taser and then pull their gun to use lethal force on this guy, the entire situation does not sound right, especially in a small town like that, odds are the cop had some sort of connection with this guys ex and that is why he overeacted and felt like he could pull the knife, in a moment of extreme helplessness this man made a rash decision that should have gotten his butt kicked and tased not shot.

They sent stormtroopers to seize his child because someone smelled cannabis, and they gunned him down?!
This is a war crime, a crime of occupation. Demand the removal all laws containing the word "marijuana". This is fascist insanity. I will not forgive society when those stormtroopers are found not guilty of wrongdoing. He is a martyr now-an innocent victim whose death must not ever ever be forgiven, never explained away as a misunderstanding. That conservative person who just had to have police come and seize that child because they smoked pot, that person's intent counts as accessory to murder to me.
I want the tables turned. I want those who believe in Prohibition to fill our prisons while we pass laws enabling us to raid and seize their houses-in the name of defending our civil rights.

If the family ever reads this, I'm so sorry for your loss. I am sure this will help motivate people to action which has long been needed in America.

Illegal or not, marijuana does not justify taking a child's parents away, There are already too many kids growing up with alcoholic/pill-popping parents or parents that don't care for anyone to even try and say marijuana makes you a bad parent (it doesn't). This is outright oppression; no man should have that kind of power over another, especially to wield it blatantly and hypocritically. There is no justification for this attempted kidnapping and murder on the part of the local government there. it is time for our law enforcement and lawyers to be subject to us, peaceful citizens for a change. 

https://www.facebook.com/CrawfordCountySheriffsOffice
 

Go say hi.

I seriously don't understand the use of lethal force.  My niece is a cop-she is five foot nothing and weighs a hundred pounds.  She has taken down a man of 250+ lbs welding a kitchen knife. She carries a flock and a taser and in her years on the force she has only pulled her weapon twice.  Both times were during shoot outs.  She is a cop in the Houston, Texas area and you know they don't have time for b.s.  Sounds to me like the lead cop at have a thing for the child's mother and she set the child's dad up--this is so fishy smelling that we can smell it down here in the south.  As a Native American, I use sage a lot and have had cops at my door many times, cause some nosey neighbor thinks I'm throwing a pot party--never any pot, but it does smell like it.  Maybe someone was cooking some chicken and stuffing--giving the benefit of the doubt to the pot smell.  These big, bad men cops could have taken down a man with a pocket knife easily--there were two of them after all.  Tasers would have been plenty to stop him with--like I said something smells fishy.

Also, to the senior, since your child has already been convicted, the best you can do is try to get the conviction overturned.  Call on the ACLU, and any other organizations in your state.  In the meantime work the system--make life as comfortable as possible for him--just don't put too much money on his books, cause that will just cause him trouble in the inside--the other rougher prisoners will do a shakedown or charge him to leave him alone--then they usually don't keep their word.  My niece that's a cop, her brother went the other way and spent 14 years in the Texas prison system--he was getting money from the whole family, so in there he was rich--when he quit getting a lot of money(due to constantly asking for more and more money), he got gang raped, got his face slashed, and beat almost to death.  We caused it by being too generous with him.  He deserved to be in prison, because of his own stupidity, but we caused him harm by feeling sorry for him and giving him too much.  Hope everything goes well for you, and I hope that the state or feds or someone will come into your town and clean house.

They never should have been there in the first place!

The first issue here is that CPS was allowed to take the child based off a police officer saying that he smelled marijuana in an APARTMENT COMPLEX...I used to live next to people who smoked all the time and my apartment constantly reeked of weed. Also, doesn't it have to be proven that the parent(s) use and are refusing/unable to stop using before a child can actually be removed, I am pretty sure some proof of neglect/abuse is necessary for such a drastic step. I am sorry, but if someone was coming in my house to take my child away for some BS reason, I'd fight till the death to keep my child. He wasn't a criminal or a bad father, he died trying to keep his child from being kidnapped. The second issue...the stupid trigger happy cops. Yes a taser could have been used, but again, it was wrong for them to have been there in the first place, in my opinion, so even a taser would have been overload (again, to me.) Cops have only gotten worse with their brutality and the justice system is only allowing them to get away with more and more. For a while it seemed like there would be some slam dunk cases coming out due to cell phone and surveillance videos...however most of the "Officers" serve laughable sentences (2-5 years) if any time at all. Now they have started to use slivers of their brains and have found out that they are less likely to get in trouble if they confiscate all cell phones from witnesses, and those videos usually always disappear. It goes higher than the cop deleting the footage because some times the phones are seized hours/days later.Awesome protection CPS provided that child, by the way, they were partially responsible for that child witnessing his father murdered, for jumping the gun.

In my opinion, and it is just an opinion, shouldn't people arm themselves and if someone comes to take their children just shoot the would-be kidnappers? The fact that the would-be kidnappers work for the government in some way should not shield them, in my opinion. Also, I have to wonder why people whose children have been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by the CPS operatives do not seek revenge? I am not advocating anything, just asking the question. Why don't people defend themselves and their children against a satanic government? What are they so afraid of? Who thinks it is better to go down fighting? Just asking questions here, not advocating anything.

so let me get this straight... it's not okay to smoke pot in front of his child, but it was okay to kill him in front of his child... and then to add insult to injury he was found with no traces of pot or alcohol in his system... granted i agree that it's wrong to smoke in front of your child, but this is just insane... why not just leave the premises, and gain custody of the man after he left the building... i can see that there are many other ways this situation could have been resolved... contacting a family member to mediate perhaps... what a shame...

If CPS and Police knocked on your door right now and demanded you hand over your children, you have no choice or discussion... how rational would you be? Would you protest or argue even a little? Would you try and protect your family?

If you knew you were innocent and had done no wrong would you be ok with them taking your children? Would you let the government in with no protest or fight to whisk your children away?

Sounds like a dad trying to protect his family killed by our tax dollars at work...

Early in life I was one of those who thought if someone was arrested, they deserved it. If someone had their kids taken away, it was because they deserved it. I never knew that all it takes is a petition with an allegation. Not a warrant, no evidence. What I'm typing here is after careful consideration of facts I personally know through training or testimony, not generalizations. Speaking of testimony I suggest every citizen spend a day here and there in court listening to the process. It will blow your mind on both sides.

I have since learned about the Michigan DHS process in a manner I will not wish on my worst enemy, even he loves his kids. The biggest issue is DHS can legally kidnap your kids by allegation. That means merely the suggestion that something may be bad for your kids allows them to invoke a Michigan law to take them. If a stranger shows up and demands to see your kids saying they are DHS and you demand a warrant to prove who they are, you just lost your kids because you did not voluntarily let a stranger examine your kids.

DHS may say they are not involved with any cases against you. Please note they and the police are paid by the government. They are allowed and encourage through their training to lie to you and others to pressure you. Their lies go very harshly for you. The only times I personally know of that helped at all are those where the guardians recorded the encounters. Even when the court appointed attorney for the kids lied to the court about how the kids did not want back home and there was a lot of audio to refute it...there are a lot of uphill battles as the system protects itself.

DHS has scripts to follow. Everything can be twisted against you. The best advice is to not talk to them except through an attorney. Get them on audio threatening you will never see your kids without working with them. It helps. In Michigan, as long as you are one party of a communication, you don't need to tell anyone you are recording. Talk to people who have gone through it and you'll see the script in action.

The best advice from someone who is not a lawyer and not advising you as a lawyer but as a friend, is to not talk directly to DHS or cops aside from identifying yourself even if it means jail. They are not your friends. They will get all pissy and DHS will say you are not cooperating but make sure the judge hears you are perfectly willing to work with them through counsel. That *usually* shuts them up but then they get even more picky on what you do say. Hypothetically, can't make visitation because you were told by your boss you will be fired ? They turn that into refuses visitation which leads to your parental rights revoked. Okay, not always but if you get a hold of records you will see the pattern. It will seem bad but tough it out and work through an attorney. Ask for one when you get to see a judge. If you can't afford one, site the 1962 Supreme Court case where they ruled in favor of public attorneys.

The above is just a small example and I mean small tiny tiny bit of what is the norm when DHS gets involved and btw, once they are in, it is pretty much like joining the CIA; once in, never out.