Simply Dumb

Father Loses Son Over Hard Lemonade

by Becky on May 2nd, 2008

I was probably in my late twenties before I’d heard of hard lemonade. And even then I didn’t know what the phrase meant - not the first time I heard it. Apparently, Christopher Ratte of Detroit didn’t either, and he lost his 7-year-old son for two days because of it.

Ratte took his son to a Tiger’s game, and while he was there, he ordered a lemonade for the boy. He was given a Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Ratte had never heard of such a thing, so he handed it to his son. A guard saw the boy with the drink and asked the father if he knew the drink was alcoholic. But the guard snatched the bottle away before Ratte could examine it further.

Things spiraled out of control from there. The son, Leo, was sent to the emergency room when he complained of being a little nauseous. The police called Child Protective Services (CPS), and they took Leo away. It was two days before Ratte’s wife could retrieve the boy, and a week before Ratte could move back into his house.

Detroit Free Press reports that almost everyone thought it was ridiculous but they all insisted they were following protocol.

Protocol? Scaring a young boy and separating him from his family is protocol? Why in the world didn’t someone step up and say, “Forget protocol - it doesn’t apply here. Get that child back to his family!” Do the police and CPS not have the mental faculties to evaluate the situation and decide that breaking protocol is acceptable? Could they not check for prior abuse and, finding none, say that this was a one-time deal? Instead they blindly follow “protocol”?

Look, Ratte is an academic. I’ve worked with academics. Many of them are not aware of a lot of what goes on around them. It’s completely feasible that he didn’t know what hard lemonade was. So why would he notice the label? And check out the Free Press article - it shows a sign at the ballpark, listing “Mike’s Lemonade.” How would he have known it was alcoholic lemonade?

This reeks of overprotective fascism. I am not a big fan of CPS only because they blindly follow rules. They don’t think or evaluate. They are slaves to the system. A system that’s designed to help kids, and sometimes does. But usually just mucks things up and has way too much power for its own good. You can’t even question them or their judgment. I’ve seen it too many times.

I really feel for this family and hope that the kid doesn’t have any lasting damage because of it.

[Source: Detroit Free Press via boingboing]

Image: Newscom

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POSTED IN: Frustratingly Stupid, Painfully Stupid