Monday, April 20, 2015

After being in dad's custody, 6-year-old boy tests positive for meth (Alamogordo, New Mexico)

Another one of those news articles that omits more than it includes. Just what was this little boy's "living situation"? Of course, they refuse to say. What do you mean by just "after being in the custody of his father"? That there was a court-ordered custody agreement here? An informal agreement? That Daddy was merely babysitting while Mom was at work? What?  

Of course by refusing to clarify these points, you raise other points. If in fact the father had court-ordered custody/visitation rights, then why was a man on probation for DWI given any unsupervised custody/visitation rights at all? And given that he has a meth addiction issue as well, we can only assume that this fact was ignored as well? What else was ignored? If this was court-ordered custody/visitation, who ordered it and who supported the decision?

If the mother had been living in the home, I suspect she would have been charged with failure to protect. The fact that she isn't--in fact she's not mentioned at all--speaks volumes.

Dad is identified as FREDDY PADILLA.

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3770237.shtml#.VTUUQNFFCbB

New Mexico dad charged after son tests positive for meth

Created: 04/18/2015 12:50 PM By: APNews Now

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (AP) — An Alamogordo father is facing a felony child abuse charge after his 6-year-old son tested positive for methamphetamine exposure.

Court documents say the boy tested positive after being in the custody of his father, 37-year-old Freddy Padilla. It wasn't immediately clear if Padilla had an attorney.

The Alamogordo Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/1yBVJqX) Padilla was already jailed at the Otero County Detention Center for probation violation in an unrelated DWI case.

Police Detective Lt. Roger Schoolcraft says the department began investing possible abuse after receiving a report from state child welfare workers on the boy's living situation.

A sample of the boy's hair was tested. Police say the concentration of meth in the child's hair was consistent with a level that would be found in a recreational drug user's system.