A Tribute to Nancy Schaefer and Martin Burns
On Child Protective Services — Part 1:
Putting Children Before the Family
by Michael Minkoff
Journalist and Child Advocate Martin Burns with friend
Introductory Note by: Concerned Residents Of California
On Child Protective Services, Part 1: Putting Children Before the Family is the second in a series of articles about The Corrupt Business of the Child Protection Services in the United States. I am republishing these articles in an attempt to honor the brave men and women who gave their lives trying to fix a system that intentionally harms families and children in order to balance local and state budgets.
Martin Burns was a courageous advocate journalist who campaigned mightily for the protection of vulnerable children, especially those caught within the Child Protection System. “He was the sort of man that restored our faith in humanity with his brand of investigative journalism was known for its fearlessness and ferocity. He left no stone unturned in his quest to know what was really happening to children who wound up in the custody of Child Protective Services.
Martin’s death is a terrible blow to the millions of people who are suffering in the family court system that he gave voice to in his “Lost in the System” series.”
All the evidence indicates that award-winning Fox journalist Martin Burns was killed because of how aggressively he was pursuing various institutional child abuse claims. Martin was working with powerful people in government and Hollywood to bring to light a very serious and ongoing problem which has curiously avoided exposure … over decades of rampant child abuse. There is no question that Martin Burn’s last project promised to be a HUGE turning point. He had fastidiously put all the pieces in place so that unprecedented revelations would be made in a highly authoritative fashion. The real enablers within and outside of the Child Protective Services system were under threat like no other time. Likewise, the true reasons behind this multi-decade institutional crime spree were finally coming out thanks to his persistence and courage.
His death has been added to a growing list of prominent child justice campaigners who all died just ahead of a planned release of either, a documentary containing highly sensitive information, or a bid for new legislation to contain child trafficking and abuse.
Blogs and social media comments by individuals who seek clarity on the circumstances of Burns’ death draw specific attention to links with the deaths of three former Georgia state senators, Nancy Schaefer (R), Bobby Franklin (R) and Robert Brown (D) and documentary maker, Bill Bowen.
The Martin Burns saga has certainly not ended with his death. Just like the pedophilia scandal within the Roman Catholic Church, once this genie has been let out of the bottle, there’s no putting it back in. Martin Burns, perhaps as no other champion journalist, was dedicated to breaking this story so that it could no longer avoid the attention of ALL of key players … CPS supervisors and case workers, family court judges, law enforcement, social workers, etc. In short Martin Burns let the institutional child abuse genie out of the bottle once and for all.
The image above comes from The Washington Times (TWT) article about Martin Burns untimely and suspicious death, published on Friday, October 18, 2013 under the title Fight against child abuse loses another prominent voice. What is particularly suspicious is that every single post of this particular report on the internet has been scrubbed. The link below from the internet archive service known as Wayback Machine captured the front page of The Washington Times (TWT) on October 18th, 2013 and was used to republish the article at State of the Nation. This demonstrates that the article was quite purposefully removed TWT. It is clear that all references to the original article by author Clare O’Toole under the subtitle Disrobing Blind Justice have likewise been removed from TWT home page.
http://web.archive.org/web/20131018011332/http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Why would The Internet Police take the extraordinary initiative to remove every reference to an article that lauded a recognized champion of child abuse investigative reporting?
On August 25 2013 Martin Burns died hiking in the Angeles National Forest. LA County Homicide Department deemed it unnecessary to investigate. The LA County Coroner allegedly visited Burns’ house on the day his body was discovered and reportedly told an inquisitive neighbor Burns had probably suffered a “catastrophic accident” but had only minor abrasions on his body from a fall on the trail. Hikers familiar with the trail have commented they consider it unlikely Burns would have died from the fall alone and they suspect other factors were involved.
When Martin was told there may be powerful people who would want to silence him, he laughed and said, “Nobody can silence me.” But unfortunately he was silenced –permanently — and it’s our responsibility to never give up trying to give voice to the victims of Child Sex Trafficking in America.
The issue of institutionalized child abuse has literally exploded in California over the past few years. Los Angeles and Orange County Child Protective Services (CPS) have come under fire for numerous and serious violations where children were dismally failed by the system. The Washington Times article contains information that is highly revelatory about the underbelly of the “system”; in this particular case, the system of child protective services that routinely permits children to be victimized, kidnapped, sexually abused and illegally removed from the country. Consider that the article was removed from The Washington Times website because it contained naked truth about a clandestine child trafficking and abuse operation that has been functioning throughout the USA with impunity for many decades.
Nancy Schaefer, another hero of the movement, is the Georgia State Senator who lost her senate seat for speaking out about the corrupt business of child protective services. Her published report, The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services, was the basis for many lectures and interviews she gave on the topic. When asked if speaking out against Child Protective Services was worth losing her seat in the Georgia State Senate, she stated: “there are causes worth losing over”. Even more to the point is when she introduced legislation to address the pervasive problems throughout CPS, a substitute bill was written by the Chairman up the Judicial Committee which removed all the strong points of her bill. When another senator advised her to accept the changes because then “at least you will get some legislation passed.” she answered, “You do not know me. I did not come into the capital to get legislation passed, I came to make a difference.”
Four years ago Senator Nancy Schaefer, along with her husband, was murdered after speaking out publicly against CPS. Brian Shilvay from Health Impact News, makes a compelling argument that she was murdered because of her fight against CPS-coordinated Child Kidnapping.
Nota Bene: Has anyone in the United States Congress or Senate demanded an investigation into her death or taken up the cause?
What about CAPTA: “The Child Abuse Law Which Could Destroy Your Reputation”? Has anyone in the Congress or Senate stopped the funding that ends up hurting families and children? An article about CAPTA referenced in CAPTA: The Child Abuse Law Which Could Destroy Your Reputation? has been scrubbed from the internet. Fortunately, thanks to the wayback machine, you can click here to read about the CAPTA issues discussed in the article from the “Prevent Child Abuse America” website.
Garland Favorito offers an 11-point argument why the “murder suicide theory is highly unlikely.” Syndicated talk-radio host Alex Jones, who interviewed Schaefer last year, observes that the “corporate media does not bother to mention that Schaefer exposed the abuses of CPS and the international child sex slavery ring.” Paul Drockton, reveals that Schaefer “was wrapping up a self-funded documentary that ‘named names’ and exposed a very high-level, child-pedophile ring.”
Americans are unaware that the metro Atlanta area has been nationally ranked as the largest center in the country for child sex trafficking. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) was repeatedly informed that Nancy was wrapping up a video documentary, a possible book and other supporting references on the subject. She told friends that this work would expose corruption in Georgia’s Department of Family and Child Services (DFACS) and that several high profile, powerful Georgia politicians would be implicated. These people would have the means and incentive to prevent her work from being produced.
The GBI documented case inquiries from the general public; however, there is no documentation of the inquiries received from government officials.
The GBI collected little information about the work that Nancy Schaefer had done. They interviewed only one person who was involved in helping to produce the video documentary. They did not obtain a copy of the video or interview its producer, William Fain. They also did not attempt to retrieve the documentary from the producer even though the Schaefers had arranged funding for the video and the producer was not necessarily entitled to ownership rights.
THE THREATS
The GBI was aware that Mrs. Schaefer had received threats and warnings as a result of her work. She had already begun taking security precautions. The information she collected was believed to be so sensitive that she could be targeted for a professional assassination. Close friends still fear that someone befriended her and committed the crime. The GBI investigation did little to rule out that possibility.
A former federal investigator who was contacted stated that a double killing with an untraceable gun should have automatically triggered a normal murder investigation that would have considered all possible scenarios. But, in spite of the threats, Mrs. Schaefer’s high profile work and the mysterious gun, the GBI made an immediate initial conclusion that the couple died in a ridiculous murder-suicide scenario. That classification severely limited the investigative scope of the case and caused many aspects to not be fully considered.
Regardless of how the couple may have died, former Senator Nancy Schaefer lived the last couple of years of her life dedicated to helping children and families who were victimized by the very government agencies that were supposed to be helping them.
Mrs. Schaefer had found during the last few years that: 1) Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children, 2) Habersham County failed to remove six children from a home where they were being abused and tortured, 3) Georgia turned two girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business. A report that she produced on these remarkable cases can be found at the following CPS web site: http://fightcps.com/pdf/TheCorruptBusinessOfChildProtectiveServices.pdf
Nancy Schaefer was interviewed extensively by talk show host Alex Jones about corruption in Child Protection Services nationally. A multi-part series of her interview and an Eagle Forum presentation can be found on You Tube here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nancy+schaefer&search_type=&aq=f
More details on the video she was working on can be found on the Alex Jones Channel of YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=WILLIAM+FAIN&aq=f
In addition, former Senator Schaefer led opposition to HB582 and SB304. These two bills, introduced by her fellow Republicans, would have likely increased child sex trafficking if passed during the 2009 or 2010 sessions. These bills would have made it legal for teenagers to participate in certain illicit acts. The bills would have effectively removed the legal authority that police have to pick up teenagers and get them into protective custody so that they can no longer be pimped for those acts.
Let’s face it, if the 10th Earl of Sandwich can be called out for similar illicit and unseemly behavior, just who might be next in the pantheon of political heavyweights. So many child abusers and pedophiles have been exposed lately, throughout the USA and UK, that it is now clear that this endemic problem is begging for unprecedented revelation.
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On Child Protective Services, Part 1: Putting Children Before the Family
Posted on May 2, 2013 by Michael Minkoff
Many of you in the South may be familiar with DFCS (pronounced dee-fax), the Division of Family and Child Services. In California, this same agency is called DCFS, the Department of Children and Family Services. I think these labels say a lot about what the agencies are designed to do. While the service DFCS renders is the “division” of family and child, at DCFS, they put children before the family—to the detriment of the family unit, the authority of the parents, and even the well-being of the children. Paradoxically, putting the individual interests of the children before and above the interests and integrity of the family unit is actually bad for children.
Recently, a story circulated about the Sacramento parents that lost custody of their children after a run-in with hospital protocol and CPS. We featured an article about it. According to the top commenter on that article, the parental abuse that went on in Sacramento is just “a sign of the times we live in and the Police State Obama is developing.”
There’s just one problem with that comment: CPS has been abusing parents for quite some time—long before the Obama administration. It will probably get even worse, but CPS has already been wrongfully accusing parents of child abuse while simultaneously neglecting its most basic responsibilities (on your dime, by the way) for many, many years now. I want to take the next few articles to discuss some of the facts about Child Protective Services and their calculated assault on parental rights and the sovereignty of the family unit.
This topic is of great personal interest to me. Almost four years ago, my wife and I were falsely accused of child abuse and our twin girls were taken from us by LA County DCFS while we were visiting Los Angeles. It took us about three months to get them back (which is a really quick turnaround actually… though it felt like an eternity), and even though not a single claim against us was upheld or substantiated in court, my family was held hostage in California for months while CPS tried to minimize their liability. We experienced extraordinary emotional distress and financial burden. My wife was pregnant at the time, and I was a high school teacher on summer vacation. I couldn’t abandon my pregnant wife and twin daughters to go back to work in Georgia, so I lost my job. More on all of that later.
Throughout these articles I will be recounting some of our firsthand experiences with CPS. This is not just an abstract thinkpiece for me. My wife and I, as well as our girls and prenatal boy, went through it. As you will see, this organization is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Knowing the truth about it is not enough. We need to fight it.