Topeka councilman and wife charged with child abuse

[sawasdee]

I have sat with my big, macho children's social worker brother as he has sat and cried over a rehoming decision that he has agonised  over for weeks. Somehow I don't see that level of commitment here.

[grandmadugger]

More information is coming out http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/DA-moves-to-oust-Topeka-city-councilman-accused-of-child-abuse-353894741.html

In his petition to remove the councilman, Taylor lays out the allegations against Schumm for the first time. The petition described him as the "father and legal guardian" of the 12 year-old victim, who was only identified as T.S.

Between October 7th and 11th of this year, Schumm allegedly took the boy into a bedroom and forced him to lie on his stomach. He then allegedly took a leather and metal belt and started striking the child, lacerating his eye in the process.

When he finished, Schumm reportedly rolled the boy onto his back and strangled him with both hands. Taylor says Schumm threatened to kill the boy the next time he strangled him.

[Jeebusismycopilot]

This is simply heartbreaking. How can anyone do that to a child, especially one that has already been through so much? My heart aches for those poor children. 

[salex]

Per his linked in, his only education was homeschooling at The Great Commission Academy (nothing beyond that) from 85-99.

He is a member of the Gideons.  He has no church affiliation listed--maybe home churching as well?  (Which would remove support for both the parents and the children.)

 

 

[SoybeanQueen]

Per his linked in, his only education was homeschooling at The Great Commission Academy (nothing beyond that) from 85-99.

Ahh, that makes sense. I read that he was from the same town as me, and that we're close in age, but I didn't recognize the name from school. It was a big school, but most of the time I've at least heard of others who went there. A homeschool family would not have been on my radar, though.

I've been in Topeka for the holiday and heard a few people talking about this. Surprisingly, the child collector thing has come up more than I expected. Maybe more people are beginning to see through the "we're SO wonderful for adopting dozens of poor orphans!" act.

 

[grandmadugger]

The jackass had the balls to go to the council meeting last night.  The hearing on his ouster isn't until the 11th so he could legally be there but I'm beyond shocked that he showed up.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

"the couple had 14 children — 10 adopted and four biological — in their 2,220-square-foot home, a number that disqualified them from acting as foster parents for the baby but not from adopting her."

How is this even possible, it just doesn't make sense! 

I really really hate the "logic" behind the use of the say "loving the unlovable". Unlovable by whom? By what standard? And if you really love an "unlovable" you don't beat the crap out of him/her and if you really love him/her you deserve no prize nor praise for it, love is a prize for itself and you don't deserve nothing special for doing the right thing. Unfortunately they don't love them,  they collect them, they hardly even tolerate them. I have a big problem with the concept of "unlovable", I simply don't tolerate it, I can well understand "difficult to love" but unlovable makes no sense to me. 

So, they took this 10 month old girl away from the only family she had ever known and put her into this hell-hole, where there had already been allegations of abuse. May the people at DCF who were responsible for this decision  fry in the same circle of hell as the Schumms.

Very much this. The DCF failed that child big time, they completely missed the chance to protect her wellbeing and for no reason other than their political agenda. If this is their systematic way to deal with situations they need to be reformed immediately. 

[Chelio93]

Big surprise...Allison is/was pregnant!

 

http://m.cjonline.com/news/2015-12-04/allison-schumm-wanted-bond-temporarily-altered-so-councilman-husband-could-be

[EmmieJ]

On 11/23/2015, 3:41:16, Jingerbread said:

They're 34 and 32 with an 18-year-old, and 15 more.  I don't understand how this has been allowed.  I don't understand.  Someone else said that stable couples are turned down.  What back-alley unethical agency did they go through?  And how did they get foster kids on top of that?

I don't know if part of the prosecution of this couple will include investigation into those responsible for placing the foster kids with them/the agencies that adopted children to them - but it should.  Those responsible should also face charges, lose their jobs, have their agencies shut down.  Something shady is definitely going on when a couple in their thirties has this many adopted children, plus foster children.  

ETA:  I think that anyone who adopts or fosters children should be required to have those children in public schools.  This opinion may not go over with home school advocates, but I really think another layer of oversight out to be in place.  And the father sounds like a psychopath, especially the part about him turning up for the most recent public meeting.  Heads better roll.

[Jeebusismycopilot]

What's scarier is reading some of the comments associated with that article.  The number of people supporting them and the people who are more concerned about the biological kids. 

Quote

But my primary reason for commenting is to ask how their biological children are doing. This has to be extremely difficult for them. I'm not sure if they had any adoptive or foster children who care that much for them, but it seems natural that their biological kids would be in a lot of pain right now.

I just... I can't even. 

[EmmieJ]

On 11/23/2015, 3:41:16, Jingerbread said:

They're 34 and 32 with an 18-year-old, and 15 more.  I don't understand how this has been allowed.  I don't understand.  Someone else said that stable couples are turned down.  What back-alley unethical agency did they go through?  And how did they get foster kids on top of that?

I don't know if part of the prosecution of this couple will include investigation into those responsible for placing the foster kids with them/the agencies that adopted children to them - but it should.  Those responsible should also face charges, lose their jobs, have their agencies shut down.  Something shady is definitely going on when a couple in their thirties has this many adopted children, plus foster children.  

[salex]

On 11/25/2015 at 9:51 PM, Chelio93 said:

http://www.khi.org/news/article/topeka-child-abuse-case-prompts-new-questions-about-gay-adoptions

 

This is the reason I lurk.  Right now, I can't even make decent argument about how jacked up this whole situation is.  Hopefully, someone more eloquent than I can read my mind and vocalize my outrage.  I will return the favor with sarcasm and smart assery.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article48184480.html  In a separate and unrelated to the Topeka abuse case, our local judge said the state had "conducted a witch hunt against lesbian foster parents.

 

[SoybeanQueen]

On 12/6/2015 at 4:04 PM, EmmieJ said:

 

ETA:  I think that anyone who adopts or fosters children should be required to have those children in public schools. 

It doesn't go over well with this adoption advocate, that's for sure. I do what's best for each of my children, whether adopted or biological. For one of them, that meant a one on one learning environment. Kids who are adopted want to be treated like they're fully part of the family. Not different, with different rules. The number of kids who would miss out on amazing family experiences because of a rule like that would far outnumber the kids who would benefit. Most homeschool and adoptive families are nothing like the crazy-ass people discussed on FJ. That's like making a rule that young adults can't ever live with their parents because the fundamentalist groups use life at home to control and abuse. Or that kids can't travel in RVs because a few families do that in insane and unsafe ways.

[dianapavelovna]

Until recently (as in, a few months ago), all foster children in my state had to be in public school. Now they can be homeschooled. I'm not happy about this because I think it is important to have an extra layer of eyes and protection on foster kids. But there's never been a restriction on adoptive parents here, and I don't think there should be. Either we're making the adoptive parents the full, legal parents with all the rights/responsibilities that entails, or we're not. 

Also, I was all prepared to play devil's advocate regarding the situation with the Hines, but then I read their petition (linked in the KHI article above). And woooow, yeah, that is a lotta bullshit. I wonder if they have or will be considered for placement of the little girl now that she's back in the system. 

I feel for all the kiddos, bio & adopted. I suspect that the investigation might have come because they still had foster kids in the home. One of the foster kids might have told their worker about the incident (and even other incidents, too, that weren't severe enough to merit criminal charges).

 

[SoybeanQueen]

On the little girl who was removed from the home of the two women and placed with the Schumms - has anyone else seen an article indicating that she had biological siblings already in the Schumm home? I saw an article with a quote from a KS official yesterday that said as much. If that's true, it makes sense that they would be considered ideal for the little girl, since siblings should stay together. But if so, they should not have had her in a different home for so long prior to moving.

[K'Z'K]

BuzzFeed, that odd combination of clickbait, stupid "quizzes," and quality investigative reporting, had this:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/the-witch-hunt-barring-same-sex-families-from-adopting-child

[laPapessaGiovanna]

2 hours ago, SoybeanQueen said:

Onthinkthe little girl who was removed from the home of the witho women and placed with the Schumms - has anyone else seen an article indicating that she had biological siblings already in the Schumm home? I saw an article with a quote from a KS official yesterday that said as much. If that's true, it makes sense that they would be considered ideal for the little girl, since siblings should stay together. But if so, they should not have had her in a different home for so long prior to moving.

"Isabella was born to a woman who previously had seven children removed from her custody, according to a court petition Lisa filed. Two of Isabella’s half siblings were removed from their biological mother’s legal custody between 2006 and 2009 and adopted by one family; her other five half siblings were adopted by Jonathan and Allison Schumm in 2013.At the time, the Schumms had four biological children and two sets of five adopted children already living in their home — meaning they were barred from fostering Isabella due to a state regulation that said their house didn’t have enough rooms. So they sought to adopt her, which had no such hurdle."

Quoting from buzzfeed article. I think that decision made no sense at all. A couple had 14 children and the Hines had bonded with her practically since birth.

[hahe77]

2 hours ago, SoybeanQueen said:

On the little girl who was removed from the home of the two women and placed with the Schumms - has anyone else seen an article indicating that she had biological siblings already in the Schumm home? I saw an article with a quote from a KS official yesterday that said as much. If that's true, it makes sense that they would be considered ideal for the little girl, since siblings should stay together. But if so, they should not have had her in a different home for so long prior to moving.

An article I just read said that the baby girl was half siblings with a child (maybe children) that the Schumm has adopted. The argument was that the children had never know each other and no bond was formed for the children to be placed together.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Aargh it ate half of my post and I don't know why I can't edit. However  @hahe77 pretty much summed it up. The baby had never met her siblings and two of them were already adopted by a third family. Not to mention that the Schumms were already way over their head with 14 homeschooled children (10 of which adopted), a home too little and various issues as Alice's blog testifies. It is really easy to doubt that DCF motivations were quite different from the baby best interests. 

[dianapavelovna]

The judge in the case also certified the Schumms as "relatives" of the baby since they had adopted her half siblings,  and this gave them a statutory advantage. The Hines rightly called bullshit on this - DCF & the court didn'the treat the adoptive families of the other siblings as "relatives" by notifying them. There was also some suspect activity by the private agency that handled the case. It also seems that the little girl had/has some special medical needs - no way did the Schumms need that on top of the brood they already had. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Yesterday I watched an old VHS of when I was a child with my daughter,  "Pete's Dragon", an old Disney movie. It reminded me of this and other threads, how sad that still now adopted children can suffer so much that you wish Elliott was for real, going around helping those in need to escape from abusive child-collecting adults. But Elliott doesn't exist and we as a society must do a lot better protecting them.

[justwatching]

On ‎11‎/‎22‎/‎2015 at 11:27 PM, amandaaries said:

This is horrifying.  Sixteen children and neither parent is over 40.  Long ago, I had a friend from Kansas, and the idea of children being beaten, based on the stories she told, doesn't seem so far off.  To see that they are being taken to court is terrifying.  I can't imagine the lines they crossed.  Those poor children.

ETA: torturing children.  I will never understand how those who claim to follow Christ will engage in these hideous tactics.  They torture children, and thank God for the privilege.  There are no words.  There are no emoticons.   <---- this times thousands.  

I live in Kansas, follow Christ, and have never beaten my children.  The vast majority of the people in my town are the same way. I'm not sure where your friend lived (and I'm darn glad I'm not in that area), but just wanted to let you know that we're not all like that :).

[SoybeanQueen]

In no way do I think that the Schumms were an ideal choice for that little girl, and it was not fair for her to be placed with one family for so long and then moved. However, statements that she never knew or bonded with her siblings and therefore they wouldn't be important to her are not adoptee-centric. That's the same sort of thinking that allows potential adoptive parents to cheerfully rip children away from their home country or split up other sibling groups. There are many adult adoptees who seek out the siblings that they were never allowed to know. Why would they do that if those siblings weren't important to them?

Again, I'm definitely not pro-Schumm, but it does make sense in that case why a judge and/or social workers would move a child to a different family for adoption. My daughter has at least two half siblings that she's never met. She does care about that. Living with biological relatives whenever possible is quite important to a lot of adoptees, and that notion should be a big part of the consideration in placement.

[SoybeanQueen]

21 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

 But Elliott doesn't exist and we as a society must do a lot better protecting them.

Yes, as a society we are failing a whole lot of children. I think you live in another country, but in the US, we need lots more people who are willing to set aside some of their own comfort, and maybe have a little less padding in the old 401k, because there are thousands of kids waiting for families. My country allows around 20,000 kids to age out of the foster care system each year. That's ridiculous for a society that claims to care about kids. Siblings often have to be split up because it's more about what's convenient for the available pool of adoptive parents than what's best for the kids. The answer to that is more people need to get involved. If they absolutely cannot, for whatever reason, adopt, then help make it possible for others to do so.

Over the years, I've heard a lot of excuses from others as to why they aren't willing to adopt, because when people hear that some of our kids are adopted, that sometimes prompts a "oh, I could never..." One family couldn't adopt because then they wouldn't have a guest bedroom. Or their kids might have to share a bedroom. One family wouldn't adopt because they couldn't pay for college for another kid. One because they might have to cut back on travel. Those are all personal decisions, but it's pretty irritating to hear people say "I can't" when it's really a matter of "I won't give up any of my own comfort in order to make sure a child has a family." People need to step up already.

My personal favorite are the ones who say something like, "oh, but those kids in foster care have SO many problems..." right in front of my children. Who were in foster care.

[sawasdee]

I hope you verbally  smacked them in the mouth? And then explained to your kids that you can't cure stupid.