–Deputy Jason Ramos of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department.
That unfortunate quote comes from the mouth of none other than the spokesperson for the long-suffering Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department.
In conjunction with District Attorney Jan Scully, Sacramento County and City police alike routinely reinterpret the law as necessary. Presently, they see no problem with getting up in the orifices of middle-school kids.
According to Sac County law enforcement, parents also don’t need to be notified that their children are being interviewed as part of a homicide investigation. Parents don’t need to be notified that the police are taking DNA swabs from their children’s orifices, samples that will go exactly nowhere, afterwards, except into a database. It’s all perfectly legal, says law enforcement, even if they say so themselves.
“These are interviews, not interrogations,” Sheriff’s Deputy Jason Ramos told ABCNews.com. “They are all consensual,” chirped Ramos. “Once it’s done, there is a mechanism in place for school administrators to notify parents.” [1]
Yeah, once it’s done, then you notify the parents. That’s how it works.
Even John Myers, a professor at the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, told the Sacramento Bee “There is nothing under California law that prohibits DNA collection of consenting minors.” [2]
Nothing, that is, except that children are not legally able to consent.
Leading child-abuse expert: “Kids can consent.”
“I think the answer is,” Myers said, apparently unsure, “kids can consent, and if they consented and it was knowing and intelligent, [law enforcement] can do the search.” [3]
Yes, you heard it here, folks. John E.B. Myers, allegedly one of the country’s most respected experts on child abuse (though expert for the prosecution, most often) “thinks” that middle-school children can consent to what might appear, to lay people, as oral rape.
Ugh. According to ABC:
Samples of DNA were collected without parental consent from students at a Sacramento, Calif., middle school in connection with the murder of an 8th grade student who was found stabbed, strangled and beaten to death near the dugout of a local park.
The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department, which has been spearheading the investigation into the murder of Jessica Funk-Haslam, 13, said parental consent was not required in the DNA collection and interview of minors, several of whom were taken out of class during the day last week at Albert Einstein Middle School….
Ramos said last week’s DNA collection was not the first time detectives visited the school and that he expects they’ll be back for more follow-up.
He declined to say how many students have been interviewed, but said students who spoke with detectives were sent home with contact information to give to their parents. [4]
Nice. A little after-the-fact note, letting parents know, Hey, we just orally raped your child.
“The parents have been completely supportive of it, in fact advocating our detectives do that for the benefit of excluding their children,” Ramos bullshitted for reporters. “We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback.”
Such as the positive feedback from Michaela Brown, who told nothing less than the LA Times, “My child’s in a room with two detectives being questioned and grilled and I’m sure he was quite frightened, which is very upsetting.” [5]
Indeed.
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[1] Alyssa Newcomb. “Cops Take School Kids’ DNA in Murder Case.” ABC News. Apr 18, 2012. http://m.yahoo.com/w/news_america/blogs/abc-blogs/cops-school-kids-dna-murder-case-012952307–abc-news-topstories.html?orig_host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=us&.lang=en-us
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] “Police collect DNA from middle-schoolers in murder investigation .” Los Angeles Times. April 17, 2012 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/police-collect-dna-from-8th-graders-for-murder-investigation.html
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