Am I wrong for going behind my supervisor’s back and calling a motorcycle club to escort my client – a seven-year-old boy – into the family services building?
I’ve been a social worker for nineteen years. I’ve seen kids pulled out of homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. I’ve driven children to foster placements at midnight. But in almost two decades, I have NEVER had a case like Dominic Reeves.
Dominic is seven. He was supposed to walk into our family services office last Tuesday for a custody review that would determine whether he goes back to his biological father, a man he’s terrified of. And when I say terrified, I mean this kid threw up in my car three times on the way to his last visit.
His foster mom, Patty Greer (58F), called me the night before. She said Dominic hadn’t slept in two days. He told her his dad said he’d “make things right” when he got him back. Patty was shaking on the phone. I was shaking too.
Here’s what my supervisor, Denise Aldrich (52F), told me when I asked about extra security for the review: “We don’t do that, Janelle. He’s a child, not a witness in a mob trial. You’re being dramatic.”
Dominic’s father, Craig Reeves (34M), has no active restraining order. He completed his anger management. On paper, he checks every box. But I’ve read the incident reports. I’ve seen the photos from the ER visit that started this whole case. And I’ve sat across from that man and watched him smile while describing what he called “discipline.”
So I called a group I’d heard about from a colleague in another county. Bikers Against Child Abuse. BACA. Volunteer riders who escort kids to court when they’re scared. They don’t threaten anyone. They don’t break any laws. They just show up.
Twelve of them came on Tuesday morning. Rode into the parking lot at 8:45 AM. Dominic walked between two of them into the building. He held one of their hands. He didn’t throw up. He didn’t cry.
He looked up at me when he got inside and said, “Miss Janelle, they told me nobody gets to hurt me anymore.”
Denise pulled me into her office before the review even started. She was furious. She said I had “created a spectacle” and “compromised the neutrality of the process.” She said Craig’s attorney was already on the phone. She told me I could face a formal reprimand. Maybe worse.
My friends and family are split. Some say I did the right thing for that kid. Others say I put my entire career at risk and potentially gave Craig’s lawyer ammunition to claim bias.
Craig’s attorney filed a motion that afternoon. Not just against the review outcome.
Against me. Personally. And when Denise forwarded me the filing, I opened it and started reading the first paragraph –
What the Filing Actually Said
The attorney’s name was Gerald Foss. I know the name because I’ve seen it on other cases. He’s the kind of lawyer who wears cufflinks to family court and talks about “parental rights” like it’s a constitutional crusade. He’s good at what he does. That’s the part that scared me.
The motion alleged that I had “orchestrated a staged demonstration designed to prejudice the reviewing panel against his client.” That by coordinating with an outside organization, I had “introduced an inherently adversarial element into what should be a neutral administrative proceeding.” That my actions constituted professional misconduct and demonstrated bias that should disqualify me from the case entirely.
He wasn’t wrong that I had opinions about Craig Reeves. He was wrong about everything else.
BACA doesn’t take sides in custody disputes. They’re not advocates in any legal sense. They’re volunteers who show up so a scared kid doesn’t have to walk into a building alone. They’ve done it hundreds of times across the country. Courts have seen them before. Judges have thanked them on the record.
But I knew none of that would matter to Denise right now. What mattered to her was that her phone had been ringing since nine in the morning and she had a motion to respond to by end of day.
I sat in my car in the parking lot and read the whole thing twice. Then I called my union rep.
Nineteen Years, and It Comes to This
Her name is Brenda Kowalski. She’s been a union rep for eleven years and she has the voice of someone who has heard every possible workplace disaster and is no longer surprised by any of them. She told me to stop talking, stop emailing, and absolutely stop responding to anything Denise sent me until we could meet in person.
“Did you document your reasons before you made the call?” she asked.
I had. I keep notes on everything. It’s a habit that took me about three years to build and I’ve never once regretted it. I had a log entry from the Monday before the review, timestamped 7:14 PM, detailing Patty’s phone call, Dominic’s reported statements, his sleep disruption, and my assessment that he was presenting with acute distress ahead of a high-stakes proceeding. I had written, verbatim, what Denise said to me when I requested additional support. I had noted the time of that conversation too.
Brenda went quiet for a second when I told her that.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s good. That’s actually really good.”
What I didn’t have was prior written approval from anyone. What I did have was nineteen years of documented case decisions, zero formal reprimands, two commendations from the department director, and a clear paper trail showing I had tried to go through proper channels first.
She said it wasn’t nothing. She also said it wasn’t nothing that Gerald Foss had filed a motion naming me personally within six hours of the review.
“That’s not standard,” she said. “That’s pressure.”
What Craig Reeves Looks Like in a Room
I want to be careful here because the case is still active. But I need to explain why I did what I did, and I can’t do that without explaining what I know about this man.
Craig Reeves is not the screaming kind. He doesn’t throw things. He doesn’t show up drunk to visitations. He shows up in clean clothes, on time, with a coloring book he bought for Dominic. He calls Dominic “buddy.” He shakes hands with everyone in the room.
The ER photos from fourteen months ago showed bruising across Dominic’s lower back and the backs of his thighs. The ER doctor noted the pattern was inconsistent with a fall. Craig’s explanation at the time was that Dominic had fallen off a bike. There was no bike in the house. Dominic was four years old at the time and couldn’t ride one.
Craig completed every program the court required. Anger management. Parenting classes. He checked every box, like I said. His attorney argued at the last hearing that Craig had done the work and deserved the chance to rebuild his relationship with his son.
The guardian ad litem on the case, a woman named Sandra Pruitt who has been doing this longer than I have, told me privately that she had the same feeling I did. That something was off. That Craig was performing compliance rather than demonstrating change.
But feelings aren’t evidence. Paper is evidence. And Craig’s paper was clean.
So when Dominic told Patty that his dad had said he’d “make things right” when he got him back, and when I sat with that sentence at eleven o’clock on a Monday night, I wasn’t being dramatic. I was doing the math.
The Part Nobody Talks About
Here’s what I want to say to the people who think I risked my career recklessly.
You’re right that I took a risk. I knew I was taking it. I made the call anyway because the alternative was walking a seven-year-old into that building knowing he was terrified, knowing he hadn’t slept, knowing what I know about his father, and doing nothing because my supervisor told me not to make a fuss.
I’ve done that before. Earlier in my career. I’ve deferred when I should have pushed. I’ve let protocol be the reason I stood still when everything in me said move. And I’ve had to live with what happened in at least two of those cases. I don’t talk about them by name because the families deserve privacy. But I know their names. I’ll always know their names.
Dominic walked into that building with his chin up. He sat in the waiting room and one of the BACA riders, a big guy named Mike, sat next to him and showed him pictures of his motorcycle on his phone. Dominic asked if he could honk the horn when they left. Mike said yes.
That was the whole thing. That was the spectacle.
Where It Stands Now
The review happened. I can’t share the outcome because it’s not final and there are appeal windows still open. What I can tell you is that I gave my testimony, I presented my documentation, and Sandra Pruitt gave hers. The panel asked about the BACA presence. I explained what BACA is and what they do. I cited three prior cases in other jurisdictions where their involvement had been noted without objection.
Gerald Foss objected anyway. He’s good at objecting.
Brenda and I met with Denise and the department HR lead on Thursday. Denise was calmer than she’d been on Tuesday. HR was careful with their words. Nobody said “reprimand” out loud. Nobody said “cleared” either. They said the matter was “under review.”
I’ve been doing this job for nineteen years. I know what “under review” means. It means nobody wants to make a decision until they see which way the wind blows.
My case files are current. My documentation is complete. I’m still on the case, at least for now.
Patty called me Friday evening. She said Dominic had asked her if the motorcycle men would come back sometime. She told him she didn’t know. He thought about that for a second and then he said, “That’s okay. I know they’re real now.”
She had to put the phone down for a minute after that. So did I.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to my job. I don’t know what’s going to happen to Dominic. Those are two separate things and I’ve had to hold them separately or I’ll lose my mind.
But I know what I did and I know why I did it. And I know that on Tuesday morning, a seven-year-old boy walked into a building he was terrified of, and he held a stranger’s hand, and he held his head up.
That’s what I have. For right now, that’s enough.
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If this one got to you, pass it on. Someone else needs to read it.
If you’re looking for more stories about navigating the legal system or standing up for what’s right, check out what happened when My Ex’s Girlfriend Was in the Courtroom Pretending to Be Someone She Wasn’t, when My Ex’s Lawyer Called the Bikers “Intimidation Tactics.” Then Wyatt’s Therapist Called Me., or even when The Detective Told Me to Send the Bikers Home. I Looked Him in the Eye and Said No..
