Detroit Free-Press reports:
If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade.
And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.
The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.
Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.
Ratte is a tenured professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, which means that, on a given day, he's more likely to be excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching "Dancing with the Stars" -- or even the History Channel, for that matter.
The 47-year-old academic says he wasn't even aware alcoholic lemonade existed when he and Leo stopped at a concession stand on the way to their seats in Section 114.
"I'd never drunk it, never purchased it, never heard of it," Ratte of Ann Arbor told me sheepishly last week. "And it's certainly not what I expected when I ordered a lemonade for my 7-year-old."
But it wasn't until the top of the ninth inning that a Comerica Park security guard noticed the bottle in young Leo's hand.
"You know this is an alcoholic beverage?" the guard asked the professor.
"You've got to be kidding," Ratte replied. He asked for the bottle, but the security guard snatched it before Ratte could examine the label.
Mistake or child neglect?
An hour later, Ratte was being interviewed by a Detroit police officer at Children's Hospital, where a physician at the Comerica Park clinic had dispatched Leo -- by ambulance! -- after a cursory exam.
Leo betrayed no symptoms of inebriation. But the physician and a police officer from the Comerica substation suggested the ER visit after the boy admitted he was feeling a little nauseated.
The Comerica cop estimated that Leo had drunk about 12 ounces of the hard lemonade, which is 5% alcohol. But an ER resident who drew Leo's blood less than 90 minutes after he and his father were escorted from their seats detected no trace of alcohol.
"Completely normal appearing," the resident wrote in his report, "... he is cleared to go home."
But it would be two days before the state of Michigan allowed Ratte's wife, U-M architecture professor Claire Zimmerman, to take their son home, and nearly a week before Ratte was permitted to move back into his own house.
backwards michigan at it again
Why do people allow these fascists to terrorize them? PROTEST LOUDLY AND ASK FOR HELP! There just might be some sane people nearby. I didn't know there was alcoholic lemon juice, but even if there is, it is no business of the state!
Y a que l'Amérique, où on se vante d'avoir plus d'imbéciles au mètre carré que n'mporte quel autre pays, pour comettre une bourde pareille. C'est à mourir de rire. En tant que français, je trouve ce genre de nouvelle affligeante, je vous assure. Oui, d'accord, les Français sont pas mal raciste, et fiers de l'être, beaucoup de Français s'en moquent d'ailleurs tout en critiquant les USA pour cette histoire d'esclavage noir, etc. Mais là, quand vous arrêtez et interrogez un pauvre type qui a eu le malheur de ne pas regarder la télé, en lui disant qu'il aurait dû être au courant pour cette saloperie de limonade alcoolisée, ho là là, je me dis que j'ai de la chance de n'avoir affaire qu'à des racistes. Même si, il est vrai, on peut être et con et raciste, c'est même souvent le cas.
Clearly the stadium should lose its liquor license. Providing alcohol to a minor is a crime.
Apparently the state of Michigan has need of taking a close look at its judicial system.
Take one overzealous rent-a-cop, mix vigorously with a broken child protective service and top off with a garnish of bureaucratic idiocy.]
Honestly. I'm so glad we're all protected by such intelligent upstanding individuals. Kudos to all involved.
The poor boy is almost certainly more traumatized now that he ever would have been from drinking an alco-pop.
This has got to be the most idiotic thing I've heard lately. Are public officials getting more stupid?! This belongs with the principal that suspended a child for sniffing his sharpie marker.
Welcome to the American Orwellian Police state.
Life's tough... It's even tougher when your stupid!
State of Michigan, City of Detroit and Comerica Park: Way to go. Way to overreact and stomp on the civil liberties of a professor who takes his kid to a baseball game and orders him a lemonade. I can see it now...
Send him to Guantanamo! He's one of them terrorizers! Waterboarding! Whee! Oh, no, waitaminnit... What's that other kind of boogey man we're supposed to be afraid of? A child molester! Yeah, that's it! A child molestor/murderer after young white girls on MySpace! Kill him!
If you think about it, which you didn't, you actually made the child less secure by separating him from the one whom protects him the most, his father. All over an honest mistake. You exposed the child to strangers and an alien system of bureaucracy and hysteria. Over an honest mistake. A politician-pocket-lining-liquor-industry-marketing-sweet-soft-drink-like-alcoholic-beverages mistake.
What is the avarage IQ in US?
There seem to come lot of very strange court cases.
That beverage should be banned and that child was stolen from his family because everything in America is run for the benefit of big business.
Alcoholic lemonade? Let's start with that... By the by, I think it's good they investigated, could be he actually gave his son alcohol. Apart from that, total and inapropriate exageration of the situation. *scare mongering*
I don't think I've ever seen an ad for Mike's on TV. I've seen it in the stores, but I can easily understand how someone might not have.
So--
Per Michigan's wise and sage powers-that-be:
Our parents abused us horridly when, on some rare occasions of much myrth and fun in front of other people visiting, Dad would let us sip beer to a chuckle or two of amused adults?
Of course I'm from Georgia originally, so don't take seriously things said from us young'uns "raised up" to make moonshine by the river!
I think the government is absolutely in the right on this one. Clearly, parents are a danger to their children. It takes a village to raise a child. Love and affection are not important to cultivating the next materialistic consumers and tax payers.
Also, one would think the alcohol companies have some responsibility in promoting products that attract children. I say, "Is this a bad thing?" The more integrated alcohol, cigarettes and gambling is in a child's life, less are the chances the child will abuse. Just look at the success of guns with children.
So, I say - start making vodka juice boxes, cider sippy cups and bring back candy cigarettes.
What a pack of paranoid stupid morons!
Although I don't recommend drinking alcohol I don't believe there is enough alcohol in a "hard" "Lemonade" to poison a little kid!
Hello! Come on guys! Morons who know nothing and are F grade student in science and biology govern us!
Over-reacting on anything with negligible effects, and yet ignoring the really harmful stuff such as the fume coming out of their cars, the X ray machine in the airport, the weed and bugs killer they spray in their yard, the carcinogenic oil dripping out their defective GM vehicles that end up in their water supply.
It is time to do something serious about people using technologies who do not have the faintest idea of how it is working!
This is a mistake (not even the father mistake) but not a serious one. Probably the kid must have though that the Lemonade was testing terrible. Not pleasant but not a big deal!
You know they serve so many craps at the baseball game anyway: Crappy sandwich, crappy drink, and crappy candies certainly more toxic than a hard lemonade anyway.
Appalling!
I was drinking a glass of wine with nice dinners, getting sips of beers from a young age, certainly by the time I was seven. I rather think it allowed me to not think of alcohol as some forbidden fruit that I had to chase through high school or college.
What is wrong with giving a child some alcohol? I certainly wouldn't advocate getting a child drunk or even tipsy but it is important to teach children both responsibility and moderation, you can't do either by simply saying "oh this is wonderful, no you can't have any."
The Gestapo has arrived and people act surprised? Idiots!!! I saw this coming in the 80's. You sheeple got what you deserevd.
Even if he had known, a sip of alcohol is now all it takes to give the government providence to STEAL YOUR CHILDREN and deny you from being on your own property? I mean for god's sake, are we all insane? How do we keep a straight face while we extol the virtues of our founding fathers who tried to implement a system of government based on the age of enlightenment and in the same breath take the most important things a man has from him over a sip of a BEVERAGE. One that's been consumed for thousands of years and only recently demonized.
I simply cannot understand how, in a 21st century first world country which is a leader in technology, innovation, and (one would think) overall intelligence, people that are responsible for bullshit like this occurring are not dragged out to a field and shot.
I simply don't understand how this kind of horse shit stupidity can exist in this world.
How did no one say to the cop, "You think the child should be removed from his home WHY?"
Great reporting...except in the title it should say lemonade, not "lemondade".
m -
The average IQ in the US is very much less than I hope, and more than you think.
It never seems to occur to the @#$%ing tools, who do these stupid and evil things, that the harm *they* will inflict on the child through the kerfuffle they create over the situation, outweighs the harm the situation itself might do the child by several orders of magnitude.
Child protective services is way out of control and drunk with power. My family went through a similar situation although it took 3 months to resolve. My sympathy to the family and I wish it was legal to sue these bastards for the pain they cause families who have done nothing wrong.
Holy crap! What the hell are they gonna take MY kid away for?
Hi
em has anyone not thought of the obvious person in the wrong here? The vendor who sold the beverage in the first place? Surely he is responsible to not sell Lemonade that could obviously been for a minor. Just a thought like....
I have NEVER seen an advetisement for this alcoholic beverage on the television or even in print.I would have thought it was what it said it was lemonade.I am a 50+ year old white male not a prude but I don't embibe and don't pay much attention to such foolishness.
Why would these dipsh!ts assume that everyone are lushes and drunks.
"I don't want to get involved" B.S. get involved. Rebel. Opposition intended to change or overthrow existing authority. Rally for whats right when you are witness to the ludicrous infringements by these power hungry, control freaks who monitor calm waters like JAWS moving in for the kill, while killer rapids are viewed as a POST-"the signs were there"-MORTEM negative head shake. Monitor you and yours, help your fellow man by doing unto others. Right(good moral intentions included)as opposed to wrong, shouldn't have consequences that were intended solely to punish the wrongdoers! Yet another example to add to the WTF Files.
Obviously the people making the decisions are way out of line in cases like these.
I'll keep this in mind if I have a kid in the future.
The USA is becoming a joke what was the taxpayers cost for this Farce?
The world now thinks everyone here is stupid and when you here of these kinds of things you can see why.
The arresting cop should be fired and the job filled with an intelligent cop if that is possible
They take a child from their family for this, yet we hear of children being repeatedly left in horrible living situations by the "child protective services" that often times end in continued abuse, or worse, death.
I can understand why some systems are so corrupt, but what is the motivation behind this epically large scale of idiocy with the health and human service system?
As a professor of applied geometry at the University of Phoenix, I am shocked that this father was unawares of the hardness of hard lemonade.
...At least Dad takes him to baseball games.
Is this type of thing is happening more often or is it just being picked up by an ever story hungry world wide media?
However, there are nutters out there in uniforms and the public services have their fair share of stupid and petty individuals who cannot think outside of their rule ridden boxes.
To the person who said:
"What is the avarage IQ in US? There seem to come lot of very strange court cases."
Correlating average American IQ and stupid court cases reveals something about your own IQ.
So? Even if it was alcohol, so? My parents used to let me have a beer or glass of wine every now and then. No problems ever came of it, and alcohol wasn't taboo (and therefore interesting) for us. But, that was Canada, maybe things are a little less relaxed in the land 'o the free?
The entire event is upside down.
1. Was there any alcohol in the drink? NOTE: they bought the drink on the way to their seats, the error was discovered in the 9th inning, and yet no alcohol was in his blood when tested by medical personnel.
2. The boy was nauseated: Yeah, go sit out all afternoon at a game and see if you feel great. Many possible reasons for that one.... mostly too much sun.
Personally, I think most of the rest is posturing to limit liability and posturing in the hopes of not ending up in civil court with the parents.
Another example of the Nanny State gone wrong...Why did this security guard deem it necessary to go as far as he did with this?
Some law enforcement "officers" are OBVIOUSLY enebreated with power and want ANY chance they can get to be a**holes. This has REALLY got to stop!! It is absolutely ridiculous. Although I have no problem with authority and I am a law abidding citizen I have NO respect for those who think it's okay to abuse their positions as officers of the law. This particular case it TOTALLY out of line and was very uneccesary.
how the hell can stuff like this happen to decent parents anywhere in the world never mind the US and in austria a guy locked up his daughter and had 7 children with her and not get discovered for 24 years.....beggars belief
OK you nuts...
I just searched the internet and could not find this story other then here. This is fake! No reference to the truth anywhere.
Am I the first one of all these posters to search for the truth before they start spouting there anti-establishment crap?
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080428/COL04/804280375
For a start. Perhaps the local press doesn't count, though?
Besides the idiocy of all officials involved and the trauma to the child and his parents, the foster care system is overburdened. Children are being given back to their drug addled and criminal parents because there are not enough foster homes and social workers to care for them.
Children who are truly in need of protection are not having their needs met while cases as ignorant as this one tie up the foster homes, social workers, hospital workers, ambulances, judges, etc.
Scrap Zero Tolerance. Let's go back to COMMON SENSE!
While I could go on AD Nauseam about all of this, I'll just say, kids of today, always exceptions though, have to much power when it comes to CPS. I can remember when I used to visit my grandparents, they would take me to one of their usual eating places, and allow me to get a beer in a kraft jar class(the kind from WW2) and I would take a sip or two and finish with a soda or a class of water. Now I know while in that restaurant, I'm sure there were people in there who could have reported it but didn't, I'm sure there were even off duty police there but I didn't grow up a drunk, or child abuser or pedophile or anything like that. I really do think though that for some reason, kids of my generation have gone off the deep end and instead of logical parenting have instead made that the duty of schools and complete strangers, but that's just my opinion......
has anyone noticed how he said he ordered "a lemonade for his son", not "a Mike's Hard Lemonade for himself". The stadium should be fined big time for serving alcohol to a minor.
I agree -- I'd hold the stadium responsible for this. In my state, there are two separate concessions -- one for regular ball game snacks & one for alcoholic beverages.
The labeling on the package does not clearly state alcoholic beverage.
that security guard was a jerk. big time.
What a bunch of Puritans--both cops,state, and people commenting on this site...so a "minor" had a couple sips of watered down alcohol--big deal, it happens all the time in Europe and they're doing just fine if not better than us. Let people put whatever they want into their bodies and mind your own business.
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Government interference in our families has been growing, especially since the Clinton Administration made more money available to state Child Protection Services. More money meant they needed to find more kids. Kids of the lower class are often too troublesome and some really attractive kids come from middle class homes. They make very good sex slaves for some of the perverts in government and are often shipped across the country for child porn and pedophiles.
You can protect yourself and your familly by establishing your status as NOT the ward of the state and then you can protect your children. Until you understand this, you and your family will be increasingly affected by big brother government as 1984 catches up with us.
Perfect example of why we need to put this government back on its leash.
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