TTSOML #233: Repeated Attempts To Visit Son

I began calling CPS as soon as I was in a location where I could even MAKE calls. I didn't have a lot of money, and I didn't have a cell phone at that time. But within one week of being thrown over the border, I was calling CPS all the time, asking to see and visit my son.

They deliberately stalled and there was no excuse for it. They claimed they were trying to "make arrangements" with a visitation monitor, and bus schedules, and paperwork, but it does not take that long, and they had a very clear pattern of lying.

Then, when they finally called me to say I could visit, they told me they'd scheduled the bus to leave in a couple of hours. I told them that was zero advance notice, and I didn't live on a bus line. Not only that, if you took the bus, after walking quite a distance, it took about an hour just to get into Bellingham, where the Greyhound station was. I couldn't make it in time, and told CPS so. CPS then told me I had CHOSEN to miss visitation with my son.

I told them I had NOT "chosen" to miss visitation and that I needed notice. So the next time, they scheduled the bus to leave ONE day from the time they called me. Several times, because of their last minute scheduling, the only way I was able to catch the Greyhound, was to hitchhike.

I don't hitchhike for fun and I never had to until I was back in Washington after being kicked out of Canada. The first time I started hitchhiking, was specifically in order to meet unreasonable lack of notice from CPS, just so I could see my son. I did it for my son, not for any other reason. It was preventable, and I asked CPS to give me better notice, but they claimed they just "never knew". They also lied and told me they never knew which hotel I was going to.

Here is another example of CPS at work--in how they deliberately tried to cause distress and wanted to prevent my access to legal counsel:

I told CPS I didn't care which hotel I was placed at, and that it didn't have to be a nice one, but that I just needed one with a business office so I could keep in touch with the private attorneys I was trying to reach in Whatcom, and keep up with other contacts. CPS made a point that they did not want me to have access to a computer.

How I know is because I found out CPS usually is required to provide the visitation accomodations and transportation, and I found out which hotels they used. They used ones that had business offices. I was told by Russ Hagen, director then of CPS, that they would try to get me to a hotel with a business office. I called myself and found the hotels were no more expensive, and sometimes cheaper.

But CPS refused to tell me which hotel they were placing me at, until they had me on the bus. They lied and said they "didn't know" until last minute because paperwork took so long. It was a lie and I caught them in this lie.

They repeatedly did this to me, telling me to jump on a bus last minute, or that I would "lose" my chance to visit, and then they wouldn't tell me where I was staying until I was on the bus (I later got a cell phone and they called me there). Sometimes, though, they wouldn't tell me at all, and I'd arrive in town, in Wenatchee, at nighttime (it was always night, after CPS was closed) and I would have to call around myself to find out where I was staying, because I didn't know. It could have been prevented, but it was like CPS actually was TRYING to provoke me and cause distress. I began to suspect as much, but then Marie would get on the phone and say in her sweet voice, "Oh no!" that they would NEVER do that. I found out they were all lying.

I discovered they were lying after they told me to show up on the bus again, with no notice, and then I ended up in town not knowing where I was going. I had been asking them, up to the last minute, if they KNEW where I was staying and it was always that the paperwork wasn't in, and the claim was that it took so long because everything had to be approved through Spokane, Washington.

After a MONTH of this, where they claimed they didn't know where I was going, I said, "How is it possible you don't know where I'm going when you have been making these arrangements for over a month, and know I need the accomodations ahead of time?"

So they were lying, and then I caught them when I showed up at this one hotel, the Super 8 (and by the way, they purposefully put me at the only hotel they didn't have computers or a business center, when the other hotels that did were only a few bucks more, literally). So I showed up at the front desk to register and sign in and the guy says, "Oh yes, now where is the paper?" He was referring to the voucher they got from CPS in Wenatchee. He laid it on the counter, where I had a look at it. He had absentmindedly placed it on the counter, and I probably wasn't supposed to see it. But I did, and right there, was proof CPS DID know where I was going, and had KNOWN over 3 days in advance, and yet despite my repeated emails and phone calls asking, they lied and said they didn't know. But right there, was the signature for authorization, by a CPS employee in Wenatchee, and it was dated from 3 days earlier.

They were lying, knew they were lying, and knew it caused distress.

That's not negligence. That is the groundwork for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

It was deliberate.