GA DeKalb Cnty rounds up "deadbeat dads" 2 days before Christmas

[Kent]

The Georgia DeKalb County Sheriff's Department has made it their personal mission today, 2 days before Christmas Eve, to round up "deadbeat dads", for failure to pay Child Support, with extensive coverage support from Channel 2 WSB-TV, an ABC affiliate.

Not a word on deadbeat moms.

As a result of this operation, all arrested men will likely spend Christmas in jail, and their children will not get to see their dad.

When we called the Sheriff Thomas Brown's office to express our displeasure with this practice at exactly this time of year, we were met with following statement:
"I cannot disclose why they are only picking up men. Call the courts."

Anybody wants to give them a call too?
This is their website: http://www.usacops.com/ga/s30032/

Also contact WSB-TV, Channel 2 1601
West Peachtree Street N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Tel 404.897.7000
Their offices are closed for the holidays though, so they won't answer the phone.

You can send them an email at: http://www.wsbtv.com/contact/index.html

Kent!

[janM]

My son applied for CS from his exgf 3 years ago January.
She didn't pay, they took her to court a year later, was found in contempt and given 30 days suspended if she started paying within a month. Two weeks later they ordered her to a work program. She went there the last day she was to report. She got a job, and by the time they could garnish her she quit.

She was frequently hospitalized and "too sick to work".

This past spring she got a job and they took 3 payments out before she quit that.

This fall they called for a hearing to determine if she could work or not. Court was Thurs, the Monday before she got a job. The day of the hearing she called court to say she had no way to get there. The ass't. prosecutor met us in the hall and said, well shes working so she'll be garnished, let us know if you stop getting payments and we'll file contempt. Well my son never got one cause she got "sick" and quit her job a week later.

Now, it seems, the AP has the file and is planning to file a motion to impose sentence. Wonder if they'll do it, not that it will do any good. She refuses to pay because they "take some of it out". Not true. Every time she is about to get garnished she quits. She owes over 8 thousand.

If the situation were reversed, my son would have been sitting in jail long ago, with no license.

At least in our county, on the website, they do call them "deadbeat parents". I don't think she's on it...yet....

[evalisto2005]

I'll certainly be calling and spreading this to other sites.

A while back I heard something about a smaller publication having a crazy article (about a diffrent issue). Some one posted about it all over and the place got so many calls to their toll free number that they literally went out of business.

[Kent]

Article in the Atlanta Journal/Constitution on Friday:



Sweep targets laggards on child support
David Simpson, Karen Hill - Staff
Friday, December 23, 2005

Deputy T. Calhoun leaned close to the door, listening. Then investigator Cyrena Gibson did the same.

Calhoun knocked. More listening. More knocking, pretty hard now. Not a peep from behind the door of the 18th-floor DeKalb condo.

Calhoun and Gibson exchanged looks, deciding nonverbally that it was time to give up.

"Man, striking out today," said Calhoun, who was on at least his third strike of the day, trying to serve arrest warrants for overdue child support.

Serving warrants can be a frustrating, time-consuming experience, which is one of the reasons DeKalb Sheriff Thomas Brown says he has 17,000 of them "on the shelf" waiting to be served.

Of those, the orders finding parents in contempt of court for failing to pay their child support --- 863 at last count --- often are pushed down the priority list by more severe offenses.

But Thursday morning, Brown sent out Calhoun and Gibson and 12 other deputies and their commanders, launching a 48-hour push in which he hoped for 250 arrests.

Brown said the time of year contributed to his decision.

Wait a minute... When I called I was told it was NOT the sheriff's decision, but the court's... Caught in a lie! We'll be calling again tomorrow!

He said he and his senior staff had just donated money for winter coats for 14 homeless children, and he had received three phone calls from mothers "talking about their frustrations not being able to provide adequate Christmases because the fathers won't step up to the plate."

Carolyn Hyatt of Lithonia is working with the DeKalb district attorney's office to try to collect $25,000 in unpaid child support from her ex-husband, the father of one of her two children.

She works as an insurance claims processor, but still has to pinch pennies. For Christmas gifts, she said, she sought help from charities but was turned away because of her full-time job.

"I understand that I don't need anything, but I'm trying to get [her children] the things that they want, and they're not able to get it. I just don't see how these fathers live with themselves," she said.

Her ex-husband has moved to New York, but she applauded the sheriff's sweep and said she hoped the idea would spread to other states.

On Thursday, the day shift managed five arrests, said sheriff's spokeswoman Mikki Jones. Nights are generally more productive --- that's when people are at home --- but Calhoun and Gibson kept their hopes up.

Before their visit to the condo high-rise, they knocked on a door in the Tobie Grant apartments near Decatur. The suspect's grandmother said he was already in jail, though the deputies could not immediately confirm that.

Then it was on to a concrete-block home on Warren Avenue, where they confronted a man in the front yard and held him firmly by the wrist until the home's occupants quieted a barking dog and everyone was identified. The suspect wasn't there.

But as afternoon waned, Calhoun emerged from the management office of a Clarkston apartment complex in a better mood.

"This is going to be a good one, because the guy still lives here," he said. He watched the porch of the upstairs apartment while Gibson knocked on the door. A woman answered, and both went inside.

They emerged with the suspect's cellphone number and his possible work address and having seen check stubs that the woman said showed he had been paying child support.

It was near the end of the shift and time to head back to the sheriff's office. Gibson looked on the bright side: "Maybe we can pick him up tomorrow."

Everybody please feel free to contact the sheriff's office (see link in original post), and express your feelings about their behavior!

Kent!

[evalisto2005]

Yes, they lied to me also. I called and the woman that answered the phone was upset about why I was calling and said that  it was  the courts, not them that made the decision and she told me to call the courthouse. She apparently  
(and hopefully) had been getting a lot of calls. I will be calling back again.

[Genie]

I think when the sheriff's department is saying it is the court's decision she is meaning that the court is the one that ordered the person to be arrested.  If the warrant is out there then it has to be enforced no matter what. The sheriff's department just decided to try to clear some of these up before year end. I'm sure there is a crunch in most areas for year end.

I think that no matter male or female if you don't pay your CS then you should face the consequences.  It isn't fair for one parent to struggle in some cases b/c the other didn't think they should support their kids.  I hang mostly on the second wives board and no one there has ever stated it was OK for their husbands to not support their kids no matter what the CP pulled on them.

Unfortunately once a warrant is issued it has to be enforced even if wrong. That guy who has been paying better get himself to the courthouse to get is straightened out or he will be arrested.  Stinks that it happens around Christmas but why should anyone be given a break when they don't care what happens their children?  

The thing I didn't see was if they are only enforcing CS warrants or if they are trying to get ALL of their warrants cleared up.

Many here won't like what I have stated but being a good Father includes supporting your children and caring about their well being despite what you think of the ex or ex's actions.  I know that this is most of the people here.  I think that sometimes we are so into protecting a Father's rights that we don't see sometimes that not all Father's are ones that should be protected.  Not all parents care as much about their children as those here do. Hard to understand but true.

Hopefully you won't nail me too hard.

[evalisto2005]

1) In some states it is illegal to record a phone converstaion without the other party knowing about it. Is Georgia one of those states?

2) I think that we should be calling the dispatcher, every officer mentioned and leaving them voice mails, along with leaving voice mails for their supervisors and every one else involved.

3) Is their a toll free number for that newspaper?

[evalisto2005]

I called back again. I was hung up on the first two times. The 3rd time a different person answered and said that I should try the press or I should try prayer. At first she asked if I have tried prayer and I asked what she meant and she said that she did not know what I was talking about. I asked why they weere trying to round up deadbeat fathers but not deadbeat mothers, and why they lied thru the press. After being told to try the press or prayer I said that the Sherriff's Office lied and that they need prayer.



RIGHT AWAY, it seemed that they knew what my call was about so thank you for making this post. Obviuosly others have called.

[evalisto2005]

I called back again and asked if I could speak to or levae a message for any of the afformentioned idiots. I was told they they've been on vacation for a few days and will be until at least Jan 2nd. Humanbly impossible, so I stated the case again and the woman on the phone asked if I would like to be re-routed to the jail to look for them. Same thing there, just the run around.

I did try though.

[smtotwo]

//www.rcfp.org/taping/states



Ga. Code Ann. § 16-11-62: Secretly recording or overhearing a conversation held in a private place, whether carried out orally or by wire or electronic means, is criminally punishable as a felony under statutory provisions regarding invasions of privacy. However, the law expressly provides that it does not prohibit a person who is a party to a conversation from recording and does not prohibit recording if one party to the conversation has given prior consent. Ga. Code Ann. § 16-11-66.

Interception of a private cellular telephone conversation without the consent of at least one of the parties is a misdemeanor. Barlow v. Barlow, 526 S.E. 2d 857 (2000).

A civil action for wiretapping offenses is authorized. Tapley v. Collins, 41 F. Supp.2d 1366 (S.D. Ga. 1999), rev'd on other grounds, 211 F.3d 1210 (11th Cir. 2000).

Use of a hidden camera "without the consent of all persons observed, to observe, photograph, or record the activities of another which occur in any private place and out of public view" is illegal. Ga. Code Ann. § 16-11-62(2).

 
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