Another day in fascist America: Open Letter to Meridian Police Chief Chief Tracy Basterrechea and Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford

Chief Tracy Basterrechea and Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford,

On March 11th, my grandson was forcefully kidnapped by Meridian Police Detectives who were aided and abetted by Meridian Police Officers whom you two are protecting and defending.

Chief Tracy Basterrechea, you have published a platitude filled, boiler plate response, that demonstrates you are either willfully ignorant of what took place the night my grandson was illegally kidnapped by your staff, or you are willfully complicit in their actions. There is no third option.

And Sheriff Matt Clifford, you likewise have demonstrated with your response that you either support police officers breaking the law, violating constitutional rights, and altogether acting like belligerent thugs—or you are simply too lazy to look at the facts and make a reasonable determination. To be clear, you stated plainly that you were “…confident in the officer’s decision making” and that you “fully support how they handled [the]…situation.” You then go on to unbelievably state, “Given the same circumstances, our investigators would have likely arrived at the same conclusion and made the same decisions.” Well, thank you Sheriff Clifford for letting us know that you are completely untrustworthy and that your investigators are likewise a bunch of thugs with badges that should never be trusted.

To support my assertions of the both of you, I present the following facts, evidence, and questions for the both of you:

POINT #1 – The premise of the entire kidnapping was the claim that Baby Cyrus was in “imminent danger.” This is a medical term expressing that the medical condition of the child is so dire that he is essentially at the point of death. For this reason, the state is authorized to forcefully take a child into its possession to be put in the care of medical professionals to ensure its health and safety. However, medical records obtained from St. Luke’s hospital clearly admit that, “[Baby Cyrus] was brought to the Meridian ED for evaluation. Health and welfare identified a foster family but due to the protesters surrounding the hospital regarding this case, it was felt that discharge with the foster family from the ED was unsafe for all involved. For this reason, the patient was transferred to Boise for further care.”

If Baby Cyrus was clearly in “imminent danger” as your officers claim, then why was your planned course of action to dump him off into the hands of strangers immediately, within minutes, on the same night? Clearly the child was not in “imminent danger.” If he’s not in imminent danger, you have no justification for kidnapping him! So yes, you’ve been caught, and your fraud has been exposed.

POINT # 2 – What logical reason do your officers have to tear the child away from his nursing mother who clearly posed zero threat to the health and well-being of the child? She could have stayed with her baby in the ambulance and in the hospital, but you ripped that child away from his primary source of nutrition. This is child endangerment. Please explain your justification—thousands of breastfeeding mothers would like to know.

POINT # 3 – What justification do you have for the Meridian police officer who repeatedly lied to Marissa, on camera, and promised her that she would never be separated from Baby Cyrus, and that she would be able to ride with him in the ambulance to the hospital? Does the Meridian Police Department and Ada County Sheriff’s department support lying to citizens in order to kidnap children?