TN takes 5 children from black GA family over 5 grams of marijuana

[Nevilledog]

Last edited Thu Mar 16, 2023, 06:02 PM - Edit history (1)

Edit to change mg to grams



A Black family fights to get their kids back from Tennessee Department of Children’s Services

https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/03/16/a-black-family-fights-to-get-their-kids-back-from-tennessee-department-of-childrens-services/

A Black family from Georgia is fighting for the return of their five young children from the custody of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services after a traffic stop in Manchester, Tenn. last month.

Bianca Clayborne and Deonte Williams were on Interstate 24 heading to a family funeral in Chicago — kids asleep in the back of the car — when a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer pulled them over for “dark tint and traveling in the left lane while not actively passing,” according to Feb. 17 citations issued to the couple.

The trooper searched the family’s Dodge Durango then arrested Williams for possession of five grams of marijuana, a misdemeanor in Tennessee. Clayborne was cited but not arrested.

Clayborne said she was told she was free to leave with the children, but could follow a THP car to find her way to the Coffee County Justice Center in order to bond Williams out.

Six hours after the traffic stop, as Clayborne sat on a bench in the criminal justice center waiting for Williams’ release, the five children — a breast-feeding baby now four months old along with 2-, 3-, 5- and 7-year-olds — were forcibly removed from her side while an officer restrained her from reaching for her crying baby, she said.

*snip*


What a fucking nightmare.

[bullimiami]

1. damnit. enough of this crap. what kind of hell hole do we live in?

dark tint and driving in the left lane? bull and shit.
what right did they even have to search the vehicle? none.
and the treatment? barbaric and criminal.
and these people represent the law.

[TheBlackAdder]

30. Cops pulled them over for dark tint. Was that their windows or their skin?

[MagickMuffin]

2. Living while black must be exhausting

I hope the family gets reunited. This Reefer Madness has got to stop.

And while I’m at it, these authoritarians need to mind their own f’ing business

[cbabe]

3. Follow the money. More kids for sale.

[Emile]

4. Is Marijuana still a Schedule I substance?

[Solomon]

7. What's that got to do with taking children from their parents?

Do you think they were giving it to their kids?

[Emile]

11. WTF are you talking about? Do I think they

were giving it to the kids, hell no!

[questionseverything]

16. Mj being schedule 1 is the excuse the authorities used to steal these children

And rip this family apart

As long as it is illegal federally this will happen over and over

Democrats controlled Congress and the presidency for two years, we should of legalized mj

[chowder66]

17. Yes; however, 5 grams is a misdemeanor in Tennessee. Read the story. It's insane.

[ZonkerHarris]

5. Scumbag racist state.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. The policing and DCS systems working as designed. FTP.

[RobinA]

9. This Is Not

the way the DCS system was designed to work. Either TN laws are strange or there's way more here than the story tells.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. Family policing is designed to separate children from their families, particularly marginazlied

families. It's a punitive, carceral system that wrecks community by design.

[TheBlackAdder]

31. Police, Courts, CPS, Counselors, Prisons, Foster Care... that's just a few industry profit centers.

[CrispyQ]

8. Hopefully this story will go national & this family can find some justice.

What a fucking nightmare is right. I can't even imagine all this playing out over a little bit of weed, but there's no institutional racism, oh no.

[Calculating]

10. Pure evil

I have no other words

[MayReasonRule]

12. Intimidate - Incarcerate - Exterminate ... ... A Nat-C/Nazi by Any Other Name is Still the Same.

[nolabear]

13. Read the whole story. It's a nightmare.

She breastfeeds the baby. If she had drugs in her system it would show in the child. By their standards of driving I’d be toast. The actions around the car when they stopped them were just insane. You’d think they were catching murderers.

Those kids will never be the same. Damn.

[wnylib]

26. Cops must have referred CPS to them.

Both CPS and the cops should be charged with child abuse for traumatizing the kids.

And since when are tinted windows and driving in the left lane probable cause for a car search?

A civil rights lawyer should take this case pro bono.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Your Headline & The Story Don't Match

Your headline says 5 milligrams of pot.
When I read that it was in a car, it seemed weird, because one could barely see 5mg of anything
Then,

The trooper searched the family’s Dodge Durango then arrested Williams for possession of five grams of marijuana, a misdemeanor in Tennessee. Clayborne was cited but not arrested.

5 grams is about 3/16th of an ounce.
Given he's a black guy, I'm surprised they only cited him & didn't arrest him.
BTW: The reason they pulled him over is ridiculous.

[chowder66]

18. The father was arrested. The mother was cited. The children were taken from them. It's insane.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. I Misread That

Thanks for clarifying.
The taking the kids is outrageous.

[chowder66]

24. I did too at first. Everything that was done to them is insane.

I hope the family gets back together asap and that's just one of my hopes for them.

[wnylib]

27. A case for the ACLU.

[chowder66]

34. They have three lawyers but yes, it may need to come to that. A bit of an update

Tennessee Democrats demand release of children removed from Black family after traffic stop
The THP, meanwhile, rejected a public records request for body and dash cam footage of the traffic stop


Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, called the actions “ridiculous” and an “overuse of power.”

“DCS, Coffee County, y’all need to do the right thing before the situation gets worse, and we have a nation of people coming to the rescue of this Black family,” she said.

“Give them their children back. It’s borderline discrimination, because if this was any other family, as their attorney said, we don’t even think this would be the outcome,” she said.

More at link...

https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/03/16/tennessee-democratic-caucus-demands-release-of-5-children-removed-from-black-family-after-traffic-stop/

[wnylib]

36. Or SPLC, maybe.

[chowder66]

38. +1

[SonofDonald]

19. Someday we'll be rid of these screwed up "laws"

Here in Washington state I can hop in the car, drive a few miles and pretty much buy all the pot I want, LEGALLY

And then I read this travesty of “Justice” being set on this family, all for driving in the fast lane and having tinted windows.

Is there any fund being set up to help this family?

President Biden needs to make pot legal in all fifty states, TODAY, imagine the taxes on its sale being used for the peoples benefit.

And family’s not being torn apart for a plant, people not going to jail for something that’s legal right across the border of another state.

If I have the right to buy pot so should everybody, PERIOD

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Gone Here In Illinois

Medical has been legal for more than 9 years now, and all adult use for over 3.
I support full legalization, nationwide.

[questionseverything]

37. While mj is legal for adults in Illinois

If someone’s children are in foster care a pee test that detects mj would keep the parents from regaining their children, a “bad” pee test would get your probation revoked, keep you from getting a job, ect

So while legalizing at the state level is a great start it needs to happen federally

🧐

[ProfessorGAC]

41. Agreed

[Emile]

23. +1 time for the federal government to legalize.

[live love laugh]

22. I'm praying for the safety of the kids until they are returned.

[Evolve Dammit]

25. Fuck this utter nonsense. ENOUGH. 5mg???

[justhanginon]

28. I wonder if they will ship the kids off to Russia like Putin does Ukrainian children.

Seems right up republican Tennessees alley.

[maxsolomon]

29. Is it OK if I'm woke about this?

Wouldn't want to make anyone feel bad.

[James48]

32. October 6, 2022

Is when President Biden directed a review of Schedule 1 status.

It should true but a day to review the criteria, and determine that it doesn’t belong as a schedule 1 drug. Yet here we are.

Come on HHS- change it!

“Third, I am asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to initiate the administrative process to review expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Federal law currently classifies marijuana in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the classification meant for the most dangerous substances. This is the same schedule as for heroin and LSD, and even higher than the classification of fentanyl and methamphetamine – the drugs that are driving our overdose epidemic. ”

[WarGamer]

33. outrageous... BTW its 5g not 5mg

[panader0]

39. can you even see 5 mgs? Or tell what it is?

[Kali]

42. a huge dose of some meds but weed?

(I think it was a typo, now corrected)

[SYFROYH]

35. Outrageous!

[DFW]

40. I have to say, my rage morphs into radical solutions

Most of them are comic book impractical, such as give every family traveling by car out of town a long-range panic button they can press when they fear they are being, or about to be, abused by cops acting with exaggerated and/or illegal cruelty. Each panic button would have an individual ID built into the frequency so a rapid response (I mean high speed cars and helicopters full of armed military-style units) force can come intervene to protect citizens in danger of experiencing what the report said happened to this family. Members of these forces will be carefully selected (psych exams) highly trained and highly paid (unbribable), and unafraid to confront dirty cops—and sharp enough to know the difference. Big penalties for (mis-)using the device to get out of paying a speeding violation (or similar), but instant dismissal and custody for dirty cops who commit the abuse reported in this article. It would cost hundreds of billions, and be completely impractical to implement or control, but just ONCE I’d like to hear that the abusers in uniform got their uniforms taken away, and suffered some abuse right back for once. I know there are plenty, most likely mostly, clean cops out there, who fear for their jobs/lives if they do or say anything against the rotten apples. They have no rank to pull, so why dump the problem on their shoulders?

Again, I’m just fantasizing, here. But I ask myself how many more of these stories must there be before some people become of the opinion that bringing sophisticated arms against dirty cops to be as necessary for their next road trip as a toothbrush?

[Lucky Luciano]

43. What's a euphemism for driving while black?

Answer: being pulled over for “dark tint and traveling in the left lane while not actively passing.”

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

44. Fucking bullshit