MOE DIMANCHE

The case for abolishing the Florida Department of Children and Families has garnered national attention, and is on the agenda of Florida gubernatorial candidate Moe Dimanche, after body cam footage surfaced of a Santa Rosa County mother named Joy Zuraff having her daughter abducted by two sheriff’s deputies and 3 DCF workers.

The issue arose after a pediatrician named Gulnur Com prescribed Trikafta, a drug with serious debilitating side effects, for Joy’s daughter Kenlee and Joy was not comfortable giving her child the drug. Without petitioning the court or obtaining a court order, three DCF workers identified by locals as Anne Gray, Denise Conley and “Brooke” forced entry into Joy’s home and abducted Kenlee with the help of Santa Rosa County sheriff’s deputies.

The full body cam footage shows Joy pleading with the strangers not to take her child before they ripped the family apart.

While the complexity of the legal issues involved in this abduction are debated in online forums, public outrage centers around the attitudes and demeanor of the DCF workers, who were rude, repeatedly cut Joy off from speaking, and were seen smiling, apparently taking pleasure in the forced separation of this family. After the footage went viral, the DeSantis administration’s Department of Children and Families issued a statement via X.

While the DeSantis administration defended the abduction of Kenlee, they seemed to condemn the conduct of the DCF workers and stated that the Florida Department of Children and Families is “addressing this”. It’s not clear what that means, and to date, no firings have been announced of any of the officials involved.

While the DeSantis administration contends that Kenlee was in “imminent danger”, Dimanche has a different take:

“They lied about Kenlee being in imminent danger. The same circumstances they used to justify taking Kenlee away from her mother justify taking Kenlee away from DCF because the same medication they said Joy wasn’t ghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Hnm91u_fwiving to Kenlee, they didn’t give to Kenlee for 3 months! That’s because there was no real imminent danger to Kenlee at all.” -Moe Dimanche

The law surrounding the use of the word “imminent” is crucial to understanding the legality of the situation and whether or not the taking of Kenlee qualifies as an abduction or not. Under Florida law, children may only be removed from a home and taken into custody if the child is “in imminent danger of illness or injury as a result of abuse, neglect, or abandonment”.

In order for the taking of Kenlee to be legal, Joy not giving Kenlee Trikafta would have to be seen as “abuse”, “neglect” or “abandonment”, which is absurd. Further, the lack of Trikafta would have to pose an “imminent” danger to Kenlee, which it clearly did not because Kenlee went another 3 months with the drug while in DCF custody.

A peaceful protest is planned for Joy at her next court hearing, and the community has rallied around reuniting Joy with her daughter Kenlee.

DCF must be abolished and Moe is calling for the complete disbandment of DCF right now. You can find his full commentary on the issue here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Hnm91u_fw

The MOE DIMANCHE Show