As an employee it is better to be safe than sorry. Especially if you could lose your job for not reporting. But, any police officer should have been able to tell those photos were innocent.

Even if risking ruining the family's life and contributing to the hyper-criminalization of America?

very innocent pictures of the girls in towels sitting on a bathmat smiling at the camera. Very innocent pics.

were the ones that caused the alert.

But why would it take 30 days of lost custody to determine that the
parents were innocent of wrong doing?

They assume that they're the last defense for kids. Only bad people can possibly lose their kids to protective services.

In many cases, the assumptions are true. But the assumptions hold even if the parents are decent and a mistake was made in perceptions. In some cases the laws are worded badly. In most cases protective services workers are overworked and barely competent.

I've seen them screw up in ways that make this case, if it is as it's reported, seem absurdly trivial. In those cases they were held blameless. In some cases they plausibly had the best interests of the children at heart, whoever mean spirited and ill-advised their actions and statements. In others there's a faceless bureaucracy and pinning the blame for screwing over a kid on any one person is impossible.

By age 7 we'd trained our kid to fight like a demon if a child protective services person tried to take him anywhere, unless he was told we'd both died or he actually wanted to be away from us. Then he was to refuse to go anywhere unless his "aunt" or nana told him so on the phone. He learned his "aunt's" name and phone number and his nana's phone number. His grandmother knows who gets custody of him if we die. Paperwork's all in place.

Protective services are a necessary evil. They often do less bad than horrible parents. Sometimes they just screw up miserably and sometimes maliciously.

...discussion with your 7 year old?

"By age 7 we'd trained our kid to fight like a demon if a child protective services person tried to take him anywhere"

I had four kids and never thought about that possibility.

You mean exercise his 2nd amendment rights? What...wha...? (i've heard that Indiana now allows citizens to shoot police officers in self-defense!)

I understand.

Having worked as a CPS caseworker in TX for five years, it's not so much about zealotry as it is about over-booked case loads. What you may perceive as zealotry, may simply be a case-worker who's burned out from seeing so many cases of abuse and neglect.

However, I'm sure you have objective, rather than merely anecdotal, evidence for calling caseworkers "malicious", "barely competent", "mean spirited and ill-advised", and the rest of your colorful adjectives, and will list for us this objective analysis of CPS workers.

the other weekend. Where upon (blurred nowadays an obvious male toddler and a female toddler jumped out of the tub because the dog jumped right on in. ie so it must be worst than brother and sister and a dog in the same tub. So whats worse and incest,, bestiality innuendo? Guess nothing. and that one was seen by millions. zzzzzz ie the cops and walmart should be charged with child porn for having sick minds.

not kidding - or maybe they were printing them out or something.

This crap shouldn't happen to innocent families anymore.

when the cops figure out how to look inside everyone's computers? If hackers can do it, what's stopping the cops?

Be careful what pictures you put up on the internet. I've had more than one friend see pictures taken at marches and other events disappear from online sharing sites.

If the cops go looking for trouble, they'll manage to find it. There will always be people harrassed for taking photos that Anne Geddes can make money off of.

seen plenty of amateur porn that way because someone walked thru with some program (I'm no pro) that steals photos off your phone. viola oh the nude photos on peoples phones are unreal...

not everyone owns a thermal printer. I do , and they are hard to find. and not cheap.

Don't need to. I'd rather look at them on my computer.

Growing up it wasn't unusual for me and my siblings to be naked around each other prior to reaching the age of puberty.

This is totally strange. Must be some real up tight people in Arizona.

I have pictures of my daughter and son splashing naked in a kiddie pool. We never viewed nakedness as obscene and because there were 7 kids getting baths every day they routinely shared the tub until a certain age. I guess I was a terrible parent according to people with dirty minds.

Walmart's got a huge treasure chest. The Peoria city's treasure chest is about 40¢ from empty.

totally legal what is illegal is removing the pictures off that site. and most places ban cameras. but someone always sneaks in.. I would assume Nudist colonies have their own developer though..

changes anything?

Ariz. Couple Sues Walmart Over Kids’ Bath Photos
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2482122

And I mean WAY off topic.

Christian fundies turn in a couple for taking photos of their small children in the bathtub, telling authorities it's child pornography.

I thought it was too ridiculous to actually happen.

Perhaps the Demarees' beef is actually with a overly vigilant store employee who notified the authorities and was subsequently fired. If this really is Walmart's corporate policy, I hope they get a lot of money from the bastards.

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Better yet, I hope this is just an urban legend.

When I was 8 my mom gave me a slap on the butt for misbehaving in the front yard. Some neighbor saw and called CPS, they were accusing my parents of child endangerment and what not. I stayed w/ CPS for 5 days.

they have to report.

I put the blame with the responding police officers and AZ protective services - sometimes I have to wonder at who these people are, what are their thinking processes and why they react they way they do.

and whatever.

ma·lev·o·lent adjective \mə-ˈle-və-lənt\

Definition of MALEVOLENT

1
: having, showing, or arising from intense often vicious ill will, spite, or hatred
2
: productive of harm or evil
— ma·lev·o·lent·ly adverb
See malevolent defined for English-language learners »
See malevolent defined for kids »
Examples of MALEVOLENT

<the novel grossly oversimplified the conflict as a struggle between relentlessly malevolent villains on one side and faultless saints on the other>
There was no acknowledgment of the effects of cycle upon cycle of malevolent defeat, of the injury of seeing one generation rise above the cusp of poverty only to be indignantly crushed, of the impact of repeating tsunamis of violence … —Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery By Another Name, 2008

The parents should have known better .. especially in these times where people are so afraid they'll lose their job if they don't follow procedures. Perhaps the person working in the photo dept at Walmart was instructed to turn in anything that might seem pornographic. So they were just covering their back .. however who would have known. Just bad judgement on their behalf. Not surprising in a country so saturated with ignorant people .. who are unable to tie their own shoes without some permission from someone. It's all part of the corporate state we live in. Also, the ever-present vigilance of the religious right who seem to speculate everything as being ''immoral''. I'd sue Walmart .. oh hell yes, for a big chunk of money .. if they took away my kids because of some vacation photos? Oh please, what is wrong with these people? Is there any sanity left in this country?

Their suit against Wal-Mart failed, but the lawyer really wants to bring them back in, because, you know, $ka-ching$, so they're appealing and the appeal was just heard last week.