A court case has developed in Missouri that raises the question of whether county officials are allowed to retaliate against the parents of a victim of abuse by one of its own employees.
The situation is that a 15-year-old boy was sexually abused by a deputy in Scott County, Missouri.
The parents threatened to sue the county because it allowed the deputy, who had been disciplined in previous employment situations, to have a job, and the authority of a deputy, in the county.
According to a report from the Institute for Justice, which is working on the case on behalf of the family, “Then, a few weeks later, the family heard a knock at their front door and found a juvenile officer and two highway patrol troopers accompanying a child-welfare investigator from the Scott County Children’s Division. The child-welfare investigator informed the parents that they were being formally investigated for child neglect, claiming that an anonymous source called the state’s child abuse tipline and reported the family.”
Hellbound and Down 