Subject: Dad of "Kidnapped" Vegan tot wrongly accused, says "No Love, No Justice in NYC this Christmas", vows hunger strike until son is returned.
For Immediate Release: Dad of "Kidnapped" Vegan tot wrongly accused, says "No Love, No Justice in NYC this Christmas", vows hunger strike until son is returned. Raphael Spindell, the father accused last year of nearly starving to death his child with a vegan diet, and then kidnapping him from the home of the maternal grandmother who was awarded temporary custody, denies any wrongdoing, and he has proof, he says. "The city of New York made a grievous error when the Administration for Children's Services of New York City took my son away from me. It has destroyed my entire family and my world. My poor baby Love is highly traumatized, he was ripped away from his caring and loving mother and father completely unnecessarily. He has been placed in foster care with strangers, after four months of foster care, he was so ill-cared for that he wound up being hospitalized for over two months, being force-fed through a tube, where he suffered further harm when a doctor at State University of New York Downstate Hospital gave little Andrei Love an injection meant for another child. I urge people to go to my sons website, www.bringlovehome.com, and see the horrifying photos of what was done to him, and sign the online petition to have our son returned to us. It has been over a year and I have not seen my son. I won't spend another holiday alone and stay quiet about this anymore. I am going on a complete hunger strike, starting Christmas morning, I will take no food and no water until my son is returned to his family, or I wind up hospitalized being fed through a tube like my son was forced to do. Please Mayor Bloomberg, please do something to save my family. ", pleads Mr. Spindell. What spurned the incident was that city-run Heath and Hospitals Corporation of NY's Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, used incorrect diagnostic materials dated back to 1980, which were made only for formula-fed infants, to diagnose his exclusively breastfed child as "failure-to-thrive" during a routine hospital visit for a mild fever, and reported the health of the child incorrectly to the A.C.S. The Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have updated materials to correctly judge the weight-for-age of a breastfed child, and the hospital failed to use the correct diagnostic criteria. Mr. Spindell contests that when his sons weight is measured against the WHO charts specifically designed for breastfed infants, his son is well within the acceptable range. "Any pediatrician should have known that breastfed infants grow differently than formula fed infants, and when the hospital staff was informed that our son was breastfeed, they should have taken the appropriate steps to evaluate his weight correctly. This had nothing to do with his vegan diet, and we have had several qualified medical practitioners testify to that in Kings County Family Court in front of Hon. Judge Nora Freeman, yet she and ACS still refuse to release my son.", says Mr. Spindell On August 27th, 2004, on their way to the beach to play with their son, the Spindell family was surrounded by 15 police officers who forcefully removed little baby Andrei Love Spindell from the hands of his father, Raphael Spindell and mother, Alexandra Spindell. The Spindells were charged with resisting arrest, obstruction of governmental administration and endangering the welfare of a child. "There is nothing more harrowing in life than having your baby forcefully ripped from your hands by armed assailants, while he screams and cries in panic stricken horror, and your wife is getting beaten down by five cops while she screams for them to stop and to not take her baby because she is breastfeeding and he needs her, and they are threatening her with mace and there is nothing you can do, you are completely helpless." "My poor infant son was forced to experience extreme trauma when the NYPD violently attacked him and his family, and he watched his mother and father stormed over by no less than 15 cops, taken down to the floor and cuffed, and dragged away into cop cars. He was so terrified he stopped talking for months and has been getting therapy from TheraCare. The officers were brutally tugging at his little arms and legs, the officers threw me onto the hood of a nearby parked car while I was holding my 14 month old baby, crushing my baby between me and the car, then one officer even put my baby in a headlock in an effort to get him out of my arms, that's when I finally let go of him." "I was in fear of my life and for the life of my son and the life of my wife. I have never been so terrified in all my life. Luckily the whole incident was witnessed by the Chief Lifeguard of the Coney Island Riegelman Boardwalk, who was on duty not far away at the life guard station. He said it was the worst thing he had ever seen.", says Mr. Spindell. They contested the charges stating that the NYPD did not show a valid warrant for removing their child, and started beating the parents up and pulling and yanking at their little boy like he was a rag-doll, putting him in serious harm. The Spindells stated all along that the NYPD were at fault and that they were trying to cover up their wrongdoing with malicious charges. The Brooklyn D.A's office lost the case at trial, and the jury came back with a full acquittal after hearing testimony from the witnesses, and the evidence, which included a second falsified police report filed by Police Office Zhen of the 60th precinct in Brooklyn, stating that Mr. Spindell was punching and kicking police, when the first police report, filed weeks earlier, which matched the witnesses testimony, that Mr. Spindell only held onto his son with one hand and shielded himself and his son with the other. The jury was able to see through the NYPD's sham and see what the truth was, and came back with a just verdict of not guilty on all charges. After ACS took their son and temporarily placed him with the maternal grandmother, another incident arose when Raphael Spindell was accused of kidnapping his own son from the grandmothers house. The Kings County criminal court dismissed the case because the D.A's office never brought it to trial. "There never was a case, it was a completely malicious charge based on incorrect, inaccurate and uncorroborated information reported by the same 60th precinct who was involved in the first arrest and was falsifying reports to justify their assault on me and my family." "Me an my wife took my son from his grandmothers to take him to his godmothers because we felt she would be better able to care for him during what we then thought would be a very temporary period of separation. We did not harm him, and never threatened him with any harm. There were problems in the grandmothers house that we felt made an unsafe environment for our son. The law is very clear on this matter, a non-custodial parent is allowed to remove a child from the custodial home if they feel their is an urgent need for this." "We called ACS that very same morning, told them what we did, and that we wanted him placed with this godmother. Instead of ACS doing what they were supposed to do by the law, they charged me with custodial-interference and took my son away when we brought him at the arranged time and place, putting him in a non-disclosed foster home location, and took away our visitation rights. I have not seen my son since then. ACS was wrong, because they did not fully perform a check on my sons grandmother before placing him with her. She had a previous child-abuse complaint on file with the State Central Registry against her, from when my wife was young." "ACS never should have placed my son with his grandmother given the existing complaint. They made the mistake, we did what was in the best interests of our son to protect him, and they covered it up by treating us like we were the criminals.", says Mr. Spindell. "This situation has left me highly traumatized, and I have been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder over the brutal assault by the NYPD, and severe depression at the loss of my first born and only son, whom I love more than anything else in the world. This has been a horrible mistake made by city three major city agencies who are all covering up for each other, HHC, ACS and the NYPD. They have victimized my family, and mostly my poor son. They need to correct what they have done. The public is watching them now." "I am appealing to Mayor Bloomberg to ask John B. Mattingly, the Commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services, and Judge Nora Freeman of Kings County Family Court to make my family whole again for the holidays, so that we can praise God in peace, and bring in the New Year with Love. To those families who have the blessing of being together this holiday season, thank God for what you have, and pray for those of us who cannot." CONTACT INFORMATION: Bring Love Home Raphael Spindell 2960 West 8th Street Brooklyn, NY 11224 Phone: 718.373.2995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.bringlovehome.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give at-risk students the materials they need to succeed at DonorsChoose.org! http://us.click.yahoo.com/wlSUMA/LpQLAA/E2hLAA/xbTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> What better way to show the world compassion than by being a vegan? Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/All-vegans-unite/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
