Midnight Justice

"Crash, bang."

I spring out of bed. Two of them are in my bedroom. They escort me to my kitchen where I see my husband, restrained. They sit us both in chairs. It is two-thirty in the morning. I notice some broken wood on my kitchen floor.

“Did you kick down my door?” I ask.

“Yes” one replies. I can hear the other two in my bedroom. They are going through our stuff. We are not allowed to know what’s going on in there. One of them goes upstairs. My kids are sleeping up there. I ask to go up with him. They say no. It seems like hours before he comes back down. They start taking things from the house.

The officers leave. I immediately check on my kids. It appears they slept through all of it. Relief. I call my lawyer right away.

Midnight justice, fueled by the outright lies of a certain local social service agency, facing a massive lawsuit.

Imagine, hypothetically of course, that a valued and trusted agency serving children in need, might not be so forthcoming about its own mistakes. That this agency would sooner lie to police to justify a search warrant and attempt to scapegoat a former client, than tell the truth. That this agency would use up valuable police resources and taxpayer money to have a matter investigated, when they know full well what happened. And how insulting would it also be that this agency thought it could hide from the truth, and mislead the public that trusts it so much.

I would like to caution the public that desperate times within any agency or business may lead to desperate measures. I would encourage anyone involved in any business or agency facing hard times, to question everything. I would also warn the public to be cautious of agencies that decide not to comment further on issues. After all, people (and agencies) with nothing to hide, hide nothing.

-Kelley Denham