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Looking back Brian and Ruth may have handled this sudden traumatic invasion irrationally. Some of us would have bent to their captures wishes, fearfully of the CPS. Others of us might have been wise and sought legal counsil, if we could afford an immediate, expensive home visit by an attorney. What would you have done? Please read in it's entirety (although it is lengthy) this detailed account from Brian's own words of the activity that happened on that fateful day, nearly two years ago. Here is the 'juice' of the totally un-ethical and violation of all rights anyone in America thought they had! It is remindful of when the gustapo invaded jewish homes in the holocaust, if I may be ever so dramatic.
Date: July 31, 2000
Location: Josephine County, Oregon in rear parking lot of public library:
I left my wife Ruth and 3 Daughters Bethany, Lydia and Miriam in our Motorhome to prepare and eat lunch while I went into the library to use their computer to conduct the internet business I tend to daily. I entered the library, got on a computer in the back section of the library and began my usual work.
In the middle of my work, I noticed my wife and Three Daughters coming toward me, somewhat out of breath and very distressed. She said to me "I don’t know what to do, these police want to talk to the girls and I know they have no right". Then two armed officers in blue uniform approached me cutting my wife off. I told them I was busy doing my work. They motioned me back behind some bookshelves. They told me there had been an anonymous phone call from a man who reported a dehydrated appearing child. I said "So what does that have to do with me?" He responded saying; "We have to check out situations like this in case there’s something wrong. We need to talk to the children." I said, "Go ahead and talk to them, they’re right there!" He said that he wanted an SCF worker to talk to them. I asked him what SCF had to do with this anonymous phone call? He said that SCF needed to see the children. I told him "No Way! All this over an anonymous phone call? SCF has absolutely no authority over me or my wife or Daughters, I never agreed to be under their jurisdiction and their rules conflict with and usurp my religious beliefs!"
Then he asked me for my ID. I asked him why he needed to see my ID. "To verify who you are", he said. After some debate, I reluctantly gave him my Indiana Drivers License. I told the officer how embarrassing it was to have two armed and uniformed police crashing into the library and swarming around me like some kind of criminal in front of My Daughters and the Public, all over an anonymous phone call.
I decided to walk out to Our Home with my Wife and Daughters. The police walked along side me as if escorting me. I ushered my wife and Three Daughters into Our Home and I myself also entered, beginning to make preparations to leave. More police cars came onto the scene and blocked us in by forming a loose barricade with their cars. There were no breaks in the cars large enough for our Morothome to fit through, so I knew we were not free to leave.
There were at least 5 armed and uniformed officers, one armed but un-uniformed police detective and at least 3 SCF workers scurrying around our bus. I did not shut the door of Our Home because I believed they would use this as an excuse of claiming I was hiding or retrieving a weapon and serious problems might develop. I did not feel it would be wise or prudent to provoke any possible corrupt police officers by closing My door, especially with My Daughters present and having heard stories about corruption in Grants Pass Law Enforcement.
I ignored the police in my doorway while I put my belongings away. All of the officers were walking around Our Home inspecting it, chuckling, and peering through windows. It looked like a SWAT operation. I was disgusted at the way these officers of the law were conducting themselves. I heard SCF agents talking of "Anger Management Classes", "Nutrition Courses" and "Child Custody".
Eventually, the armed but un-uniformed police detective, Dan Evans, came to the door of Our Home and began talking to me. He told me his name and that he was an investigator. Since he was with the police I believed he would be reasonable to talk to because I didn’t believe that the police would have a vested interest in removing Sons and Daughters from Homes and breaking up Families. I clearly told him that I would talk to him alone and do all things through him. I refused to talk to SCF and repeated myself many times on this point.
I told him that we were travelling and that we are residents of Indiana as verified by our Indiana driver licenses and the Indiana license plate on our Motorhome. I asked him to produce the contract that I had signed which placed me under his jurisdiction or under SCF’s jurisdiction. He could not produce it. Then he asked me if I was a Constitutionalist? I wondered if he might have prejudice against Constitutionalists and I replied "No, but I do know I have rights and you took an oath to uphold them". He said "That’s OK, we respect that you don’t recognize our jurisdiction, but that’s something you’ll have to deal with later in the courts."
I asked him what rights I had and he remained silent. I asked other officers what rights I had and they all remained silent. I asked what courses of action I could take and they remained silent. They withheld from me the very information that they took an oath to protect and serve me with. They denied me proper counsel, instead giving me fraudulent lies and threats.
The Detective told me that he was running out of time for doing this the peaceful way. A man wearing a white shirt and an arm brace on his left arm who had been peering in the front window now spoke up and said that the detective was doing me a favor and that if it would have been him doing the investigation, he would have just arrested me and thrown me in jail to begin with and then he would have taken the kids. This man’s words and behavior disgusted me. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was wishing I had a cell phone so I could call in some friend or anyone to come and help us while we were being surrounded and interrogated by all these armed men.
The detective told me I needed to start cooperating. I asked him what would happen if I didn’t cooperate and didn’t let anyone in. He said, "Well, we’ll have to arrest you and drag the kids out kicking and screaming if we have to, but we don’t like to do it that way." I was afraid and began to feel nauseous. I realized we were outnumbered by the armed men surrounding us, denying us any help or counsel. The Detective’s persistent hounding and threats made it clear we were not free to go. I turned to my wife and asked her what she thought we should do?
The detective’s words had cut me deep and after more than an hour of these people’s constant hounding, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bear the thought of my Daughters being forcefully removed and I began to listen to these people’s lies. They told me that they had the girls’ best interest at heart. I could identify with this because my girls mean more to me than anything. I believed them. They told me that they wanted to help us out with food and money. I began to believe what they were telling us, that we had no choice in the matter, we had to submit and let them come into Our Home and interrogate our children. I still didn’t trust them but I was feeling ill and had difficulty thinking properly. The whole experience was humiliating and degrading. My Wife looked at me and said, "I guess we have to let them in".
I repeated to the Detective that he was the only one I was going to go through. He said that SCF had to talk to the girls alone. I said "No Way!" I never leave my girls alone with strangers. I told him he alone could go back and talk to them. I couldn’t understand why he wanted to talk to them alone? He asked me to leave but I refused.
Ruth was ordered to remove herself from Our Home while I sat in the front seat of the Motorhome. Fully armed, the Detective questioned My Daughters in the back. I put my head down on the steering wheel and wished it all away. I was utterly disgusted with what was happening and I asked myself, "What are they doing? Why is this stranger asking My Daughters about things that don’t matter?
He did not seem concerned about giving any of My Daughters water or food. However, he immediately focused on Lydia who had a bruise and a band-aid on her forehead. I heard the detective ask her questions like "Who gave you your boo-boo?" and "Did daddy push you down?" There were many leading questions asked, some of which I will list here: "Are you hungry?" "Was Daddy angry" "Did daddy give you this bruise?" "Who hurt you?" "How did you get this bruise?" "Did daddy hurt you?" At first none of the girls would speak to him, but after a while My Middle Daughter of 3 years began to talk because the detective directed his questioning to her alone. She is unable to speak full and proper sentences and does not have a proper concept of time other than today and yesterday. An occurrence 2 years ago happened yesterday to in her mind.
These are the replies she gave during the interrogation: "Mommy was angry" "I peed my bed" "Got blood on it" "God did it" "Babba pushed me down". From these statements from a 3 year-old child, Detective Dan Evans had his evidence to charge me with a felony of assault 3 against My Own Daughter Lydia.
After he was done fishing he pulled me outside and told me, " It doesn’t matter what you say, because Your Daughter has already incriminated you, but I want to hear your side of the story". He continued saying, "We all make mistakes, just a few hours ago I was on the phone with my son and I got angry with him and started yelling at him because of what he was doing. I was wrong to shout at him like that in anger." I then told him that I would speak to him as a man, but not legally. I repeated what Lydia had told him and said other things. Then he asked me a few questions about my past, "Have you ever gotten angry?"… etc. He told me I was going to have to take "Anger Management Classes".
At this point, I began having difficulty understanding what was happening. From the time I was approached in the Library it was obvious I was not free to go. Our Motorhome was blocked in by a hedge on two sides and police cars on the remaining 2. Yet I had not been read my rights, and no one had responded to my questions about my rights.
After I did my best to give account of what had actually happened I told the Detective that I had only spoken to him as man to man, not legally. My rights had not been read to me and to my understanding he just wanted to know personally, that is exactly how he made it appear. His true intention was about to surface.
He walked me back over to My Home and told me that I was wrong and that he was charging me with Assault 3, a felony charge. The Detective then told me that he would take me to the county jail for fingerprinting and photos and that I would probably be released shortly thereafter. Ruth, Our Daughters and I were then escorted into Our Home while they did paperwork outside.
I was then taken aside to an alley where I was questioned about the girls’ ages by Spencer Soderlind, an SCF caseworker. I told him I was feeling ill and kept requesting to sit or lay down. No one paid attention, so I simply sat down on the curb. I answered what questions I could, but I felt like I was in shock, barely conscious. It should have been obvious that I was not feeling well, so I don’t know why they kept hounding me for information.
I got up and walked back to My Home and went in with Ruth and Our Daughters. The Detective came into Our Home and asked a few more questions. We were all very scared and Ruth was crying. I picked Lydia up and gave her a long hug and then put her down and told her to be strong. I then looked at the Detective and asked him "What do you see? Do you see people here who deserve this? What did we ever do?" He said, "You obviously love Your Daughters, otherwise you wouldn’t be teaching them how to read, to write, do math" etc. He said that Bethany looked healthy but that Lydia and Miriam appeared malnourished and dehydrated to him.
No one ever asked if any of them had been ill or had conditions or allergies. The other caseworkers also said that it was obvious that we love our children. I asked them how they could accuse the children of dehydration and malnutrition when Ruth and the girls were eating and drinking when the 1st officer peered through the window to speak with Ruth. The empty plates and glasses were on the floor through the entire first part of the interrogation and the kids still had jam on their faces when they were taken. No one answered these questions. They simply claimed that they needed to take them to the hospital to have them checked out.
There was obviously no evidence of abuse in Our Home, so they were going to take them to their own arena of familiar state paid doctors to "produce" some evidence. But before this, I needed to be removed from the picture because it was apparent I wouldn’t let them keep my God Given Daughters. We were then removed from Our Home to depart. Before leaving the library parking lot, I informed the Detective that I take critical to life medicine twice a day, once each morning and once each evening, and that without it, severe spasmatic reaction and asthma is imminent. I could see the possibility of not getting back to my medicine for a while. He said, "Don’t worry about it, when they book you in the jail, they won’t allow any pills or drugs and you should be out in a matter of hours anyway".
I hesitated at his answer but saw no choice but to trust him. I had no knowledge of jails or legal procedures, having no previous police record of any kind, not even a traffic ticket. My wife had been questioned during all this and I now saw that they were taking her and Our Daughters to the hospital to have them checked out. I began to cry as I saw My Daughters being placed into an unknown mini-van. I told them I loved them and then looked away because I couldn’t take the pain.
The Detective told me that he wasn’t going to cuff me but would have me escorted over to the station unrestrained. I thought that odd for a felon to be allowed to go about unrestrained. Then a uniformed and armed woman stood on my left and the man with the white shirt and arm brace on his left arm stood on my right and escorted me with no body contact to the police station.
I was taken to a tiny room adjacent to the Detective’s cubicle and was asked to sit down at a small table with two chairs facing each other. After a few moments, the Detective occupied the other chair. On the table was a cassette tape recorder. He inserted a tape and pushed record. He told me that I probably knew my rights better than he did and asked me if I knew my rights? I asked him to read them to me. After he read me my rights I informed him that I intended to exercise my 5th Amendment right to remain silent. He then asked me if he had threatened me in any way and I began to say no, but realized that indeed he had, so I again reminded him that I was choosing to exercise my 5th Amendment right to remain silent. He then said, "I wish you would have told me that before so I wouldn’t have wasted a tape."
He then moved me to his office space and asked me a few questions like where it happened and when it happened. I said I didn’t know. Then I was taken to the jail where I was stripped of my clothes, my bible, my every possession, except my glasses. I was given jail clothes and placed in a holding cell with a piece of vinyl mat and a scratchy blanket which I wrapped around myself because I was shivering.
By this time I badly needed to urinate, but no one heard my beating on the door or calling out for the guard so I had to urinate into a drain in the floor. This was a humiliating experience and I hoped no one would barge into the cell while I was doing this.
About an hour later, I was served dinner which I could not eat. I was simply too traumatized. I could not eat during my entire incarceration at the jail. Later I was taken to a temporary holding cell which had a bed, linens, a sink and a toilet. If I spoke loudly I could talk to the prisoners in the cells adjacent to mine, though I could never actually see anyone. I asked the other prisoners what I could do to get the medicine I was now past due on. They told me that I would have to ask the guard when he came around. This I did and the guard told me that I would have to wait until morning to see the nurse if he was on duty and he would have to prescribe me the medicine! I told him that I usually take the medicine at 5pm and then again first thing in the morning. The guard shrugged his shoulders, turned and walked away.
I laid down on the bed and prayed to God to get me through the night without dying. I did make it through, though I was very ill, and short of breath. In the evening I was served a snack which I couldn’t eat because I still felt ill. I didn’t sleep much because of all the thoughts going around in my head. Mostly all I could think of was my poor family and what they must be going through without me there to help and protect them. I prayed for mercy from God and this was the hardest night of my life!
I had heard it said at some point that my initial hearing would probably be 1 month from the time of my arrest and I knew that it was possible that they could hold me there in jail until that time. I was devastated. I felt like an animal pacing back and forth not knowing what to do. Eventually I was taken out of the cell to have my fingerprints and photos taken. The fingerprinting was a violating experinece, but I was happy to be out of that cell for a few moments! Unfortunately I was returned to the cell until the the 1st of August (Bethany’s Birthday). The next morning I still had no medicine and no sign of the nurse. I was served breakfast which I could not eat because I was still too traumatized and ill.
Before midday I was taken to see the release officer who reviewed my information. He told me that I had basically admitted to the crime and asked me why I was so angry. I told him that I wasn’t angry and he began to speak of how my eyes twitched and about how my body language said that I was uncomfortable. I told him that all I cared about was getting my family back together. He said that he was reluctant to release a "transient" with a felony charge back out on the streets. I
told him that I knew that if I didn’t show up in court that I would be a fugitive in every state because of the felony charge.
He pointed out to me the fact that I have no criminal record and that my wife and I both have college degrees and that I am an Eagle Scout. He wanted to know about our financial business and how we make a living. I told him about our Internet business. He seemed puzzled why a person such as myself would find himself in jail. I was puzzled as well. Eventually he decided to release me and about two hours later I was released downtown Grants Pass, but only to find that our Motorhome was gone and my wife nowhere to be found. I was alone in a strange town with no where to go!
I was not notified of a trial date set for that day nor was I notified that My Daughters had been confiscated by the State of Oregon and placed into protective custody. The Protective Custody Reports state that "Parents were notified of this hearing today and of protective custody".
I remembered the welcome to Grants Pass, Oregon sign I had seen on my way into town and shook my head in dismay! I recalled it stating the population, but never did it warn of possible seizure of Daughters and property without notice or warrant.
Humbly Submitted this 9th Day of October, 2000.
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Brian Edward Christine
A man whose Christian Name is Brian Edward Christine came before me on the 9th day of October, 2000 A.D. and attested that the above statements are true and correct according to his conviction based on first hand competent witness.
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Notary Public for Oregon
My Commission Expires : _____________
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