Parents who had children taken from home sue City of Waltham, police, DCF workers

A former Waltham couple whose children were taken from them in the middle of the night by police and employees of the state’s Department of Children and Families filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that their civil rights were violated.

Sarah Perkins and Joshua Sabey, who now live in Idaho, are suing four DCF workers, four Waltham Police officers, and the City of Waltham.

Perkins and Sabey allege the officers and DCF workers did not have a warrant when their house was searched and their two young sons were taken from them.

The couple’s story, which was first reported by The Washington Post, began when they took their three-month-old son to a hospital for a fever. Doctors discovered a healed fracture on one of the child’s ribs, which prompted a further investigation.

Perkins and Sabey have never been charged with any civil or criminal offense related to their parenting, according to the complaint. They also allege DCF workers “knew with certainty” that there was no evidence of abuse before the children were taken around 1 a.m. on July 16, 2022.

The couple did not regain full custody of their children for four months.

“These actions were reprehensible and plainly unconstitutional. The officials had no warrant to enter the Sabeys’ home or seize the young Sabey children, and there was no plausible imminent threat that could justify entering the home and seizing the sleeping toddler and infant from their loving parents and family home in the middle of the night,” the complaint said. “To this day, neither DCF nor the WPD have offered any tenable justification, excuse, or apology for their lawless actions.”

The incident brought widespread attention to a Massachusetts law that allows child welfare workers to take children from their homes without a court order if they believe that action is needed to protect the children.

The Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state legal aid agency, has pushed for more oversight and argued that the practice needlessly traumatizes children. Some lawmakers are also pushing to change the law so that social workers can only take temporary custody of children without a court order in instances when there is no time to go before a judge, The Boston Globe reported.

“While the Sabeys were ultimately—and obviously—cleared of any wrongdoing, and the children were eventually reunited with their parents, nothing can undo the trauma of that early July morning and the prolonged abrogation of the Sabeys’ parental rights,” The complaint said. “For parents, the emotional and physical toll of having your crying children torn from your arms never goes away.”