Beware what you buy your children

[Guest guest]

Boy Kidnapped by CPS for

Accidental Hard Cider Order

 

 

Phil Leggiere

Don’t Tase Me, Bro!

April 30, 2008

U of Michigan professor unfamiliar with Mike’s Hard Lemonade orders

his son a lemonade at baseball game. After boy is discovered by a

security guard sipping the bottle police and child protective services

remove boy to foster home.

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.

 

http://www.infowars.com/?p=1840

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.

 

 

[Guest guest]

I wouldn't blame the dad. I would blame the dumdum who was selling the

drink in the first place. The dumdum should have told the dad that the

drink is alcoholic since it was clear that anyone could have been

misled by the drink's misleading label. The dad should sue the

beverage company for selling a product with a misleading label and sue

the dumdum who didn't properly inform the dad of the beverage's

alcoholic content.

[Guest guest]

Definitely - sue the company and then sue the cops for confiscating his son

and sue the guard for not allowing him to read the label while he's about

it? And sue the organizers for allowing alcohol to be sold at the event in

the first place.

 

Jane

 

-

" jlkinkona " <josephine

 

 

I wouldn't blame the dad. I would blame the dumdum who was selling the

drink in the first place. The dumdum should have told the dad that the

drink is alcoholic since it was clear that anyone could have been

misled by the drink's misleading label. The dad should sue the

beverage company for selling a product with a misleading label and sue

the dumdum who didn't properly inform the dad of the beverage's

alcoholic content.