(NaturalNews) Officials with Riverside County, Calif., removed a newborn baby from her mother without a valid reason or a court-ordered warrant, a practice that the county does very often, according to claims made by the mother in a federal class action lawsuit.
The lead plaintiff in the suit, known as "A.A.," which is the baby, filed suit against the county, Juvenile Dependency Investigator Karla Torres, Torres' supervisor Felicia M. Butler, and "all similarly situated county social workers and investigators" Dec. 12, Courthouse News Service reported.
The plaintiff's attorney, Shawn McMillan, told the news service that his firm, which focuses on civil rights cases against government child protective agencies, "uncovered an alarming trend" about one year ago while undergoing discovery for other cases.
"County child welfare agencies regularly subvert the constitutional rights of parents and children by seizing children from their parents when there is no danger to the child, and in fact no need to seize the child at all," McMillan told Courthouse News Service.
"The class action is designed to address a procedural problem. They [Riverside County social workers] as a matter of course don't get warrants before seizing kids," he continued. "Deficient policies, deficient training and deficient supervision all lead to civil rights violations on a regular basis. This lawsuit is designed to address the problem."
Child was healthy and in no danger
The 27-page suit claims that A.A. is just one of thousands of children who were wrongfully taken away from their parents by the county's social workers.
"In February 2013, when she was three days old, plaintiff A.A. was snatched by an employee of the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services literally from the breast of her mother as they lay in the hospital recuperating from a successful, safe delivery," the complaint said.
The child "was healthy and in no danger whatever; her mother has no history of drug, alcohol, or tobacco use nor any history of psychiatric treatment," the suit says
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