Homeschooled Children Seized By Authorities Still In State Custody

What began as an investigation ignited by an anonymous report turned into a nightmare for an Arkansas homeschooling couple and seven of their children last week – and it's not over yet.

Arkansas sheriff's deputies in Garland County have "stolen" seven homeschoolers from their parents in a home raid spurred by an anonymous caller who told authorities the family's house contained a "poisonous substance" — which turned out to be a mineral supplement/water purifier that isn't FDA-approved. It's been more than a week since the officers and the Department of Human Services (DHS) seized the seven homeschoolers. They remain in state custody.

Michelle Stanley, the mother of the seven children, is still in shock that the police and DHS have gotten away with abducting her children — taking them into custody under what she calls false pretenses.  "The DHS has come and stolen our kids from us under the guise of 'protecting our children," Stanley wrote in an email shortly after her home was raided by police and the DHS, according to Health Impact News.  A sick joke?

Michelle Stanley shared that the debacle began a month before the seizure of her children, which resulted from a complaint made to authorities that she and her husband permitted their children to run around outside in the snow barefoot. She quickly assured the female DHS agent that her children were having harmless fun — a family tradition when it snowed.  "We showed her some of the '200 and something' pair of shoes and told her (actually the kids told her) how it was their preference to go barefoot and that it was like a tradition to briefly run out in the snow barefoot and take a picture of the footprints," Stanley explained to the investigator last month...