Emily Michot reports in the Miami Herald,
A smiling baby with a thick head of black hair, Ingrid Ronan Johnson was born to a Miccosukee mother and a white father, inside Baptist Hospital in Kendall, Florida.Read more here.
Two days later, police detectives arrived at the hospital acting on a court order to remove the baby from the new parents.
The order was not signed by a Florida judge, but by a tribal court judge on a reservation 32 miles away in the heart of the Everglades. The cops were from the Miccosukee police force, a department whose jurisdiction covers mainly the reservation and properties owned by the tribe.
The hospital on Sunday allowed the baby to be taken away.
The parents, Rebecca Sanders and Justin Johnson, are now heartbroken and outraged — filing complaints with Miami-Dade police, state prosecutors and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. On Tuesday, they told the Miami Herald that the tribal court order was a sham, concocted by the baby’s vengeful maternal grandmother, Betty Osceola, who simply did not want a white father to be a part of the child’s life.
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around how this has happened,” Johnson, 36, said tearfully. “I can’t even begin to explain how hard this has been. I don’t see how people of the Miccosukee tribe can look me in the face and tell me this is OK.”
Said Sanders, 28, a tribal member: “I feel like I have no rights. I thought the tribe was to protect its people, not use its own rulings to control its people.”
...A hospital spokesman, Dori Alvarez, declined to comment on specifics because of federal patient privacy laws. In a statement, however, she stressed that Miami-Dade police officers also accompanied tribal police to “enforce a court order” that day.
“We obeyed law enforcement. It is our hospital’s policy to cooperate with Miami-Dade law enforcement as they enforce court orders,” the statement said.
According to Sanders and Johnson, this is what happened:
Sanders, a former body builder who grew up on the Miccosukee reservation, met Johnson through fitness circles. He’s a strength coach and therapist who helped her rehab a broken arm.
Most recently, they lived together in Arkansas, but had come down to Miami so she could help care for her ailing stepfather. The friction between the couple and Osceola escalated for months. “Betty has always shown disdain for me,” Johnson said.
Osceola succeeded in getting Johnson, who is now working in Miami, banned from the reservation. He and Sanders decided to split, but remained amicable with plans to co-parent together.
On Friday morning, Osceola drove her daughter to Baptist’s main hospital in Kendall. Sanders left her 11-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter — children from a previous relationship — in the care of her brother, who lives on the Seminole reservation.
Later on Friday, about 8:30 a.m., little Ingrid was born through a C-section surgery. In the recovery room, Osceola saw Johnson. That night, Osceola grew agitated with his presence. Sanders insisted she wanted Johnson there — and he would always be a part of the child’s life.
“She threatened to take my kids away. She didn’t want him there. She told told security he needs to be removed,” Sanders recalled.
The hospital allowed Johnson to stay. But on Saturday, the next morning, while the baby was being tended to by doctors, a nursing supervisor entered the room accompanied by security and said “they had received phone calls that it would be in their best interest to have me removed,” Johnson said.
The nurse did not say who was making the calls. Stunned, Johnson refused to leave until he got to see Ingrid.
“I remember kissing her forehead and telling her, ‘Daddy will see you soon,’ ” Johnson said, tearfully. “I haven’t seen my daughter since.”
The distraught Sanders remained in the hospital. On Sunday morning, a doctor came and took the baby for what seemed a normal checkup. But then, in walked two Miccosukee police detectives, accompanied by hospital security and staff.
“The detectives asked me if I knew what was going on. They said, ‘Your baby is being taken. She is no longer in your custody. You are not the mother anymore,’ ” Sanders recalled.
She identified the lead detective as Michael Gay, whom state records show has been with the tribal department since 2009. He could not be reached for comment. According to Sanders, he did not have a copy of the Miccosukee court order stripping her of custody of the newborn.
He also said if she went to the reservation, she would need to enter drug rehab. “I asked him for what. I don’t do drugs,” Sanders said.
The detectives left. Within minutes, she said, hospital security and uniformed Miami-Dade police officers escorted her out of the hospital; it is unclear who called the county officers, or if they knew the specifics of the tribal conflict.
Johnson picked up Sanders and the two immediately went to file a report at the Hammocks district station.
It was not until Monday that the tribal court emailed Sanders a copy of the legal documents. A petition filed by Osceola alleged that Sanders’ autistic son had suddenly revealed that the parents had struck him — something both parents vehemently deny. The order stripping custody does not say Sanders did anything wrong, but stressed it is in the “best interest” of all three children that they remain in the custody of Osceola.
Former Miccosukee Police Chief Dave Ward, who is not involved in the case, said tribal court orders are not valid outside the reservation.
“In my opinion, the Miccosukee officers needed to present the tribal order to a state or federal judge in Dade, who would review it and issue an order allowing Miami-Dade police to follow through with removing the baby.”
Ward also said he believed the hospital opened itself up to liability by allowing the child to be removed.
