Satanic_Hamster: That's not exactly helping their case.

Don't understand the far right on issues like this. You'd think someone would say, "Hey, does defending these people really even help us, if not make us look really bad?"

Especially given that pretty much all sides admit that this guy ziptied the grandmother and reabducted his kids.  I'm pretty sure that the freedom to swing your fist ends at assaulting your relatives/in-laws.

FatherChaos: "Approximately two weeks later, Slidell Police were notified that Mr. Hakken had shown up to the foster family home ... with a firearm demanding the return of his children," the Slidell police statement continued. "The foster parents called 911, and Mr. Hakken fled without his children. We have heard nothing until (Wednesday)."

Yeah, it looks like they took his kids from him for very good reasons.  He needs to be institutionalized.

I'd do the same thing if someone tried to take my son away from me too, and if you wouldn't I'd say you're the shiatty parent for not loving your kid.

BSABSVR: Satanic_Hamster: That's not exactly helping their case.

Don't understand the far right on issues like this. You'd think someone would say, "Hey, does defending these people really even help us, if not make us look really bad?"

Especially given that pretty much all sides admit that this guy ziptied the grandmother and reabducted his kids.  I'm pretty sure that the freedom to swing your fist ends at assaulting your relatives/in-laws.

Where I'm from, family's the only people it's acceptable to whup.

BSABSVR: Reason Magazine has been lionizing these two as great patriots for a week.

Why am I unsurprised. I used to hang out at a bar not far from their offices, and they are the biggest group of insufferable pricks you would ever care to be around short of the Yankees locker room.

For a minute there I thought they were talking about Jay Z.

Wow. The comments on the CNN site go wildly off track.

Altitude5280: Wow. The comments on the CNN site go wildly off track.

While here at Fark we stay strictly on point.

Get Jay and Beyonce to smuggle the kids back to America. Problem solved.

Cuba says they're going to turn over the couple and the kid to US authorities. Wonder if the Republicans who jumped on the 'nation of outlaws' bandwagon will sprain something jumping back off.

/Do you know what nation actually does refuse to return criminals to the US even though we're BFFs?

Nabb1: By all means, they should be allowed to disregard a court judgment which found the children's continued custody with the parents to be so dangerous to their safety and welfare that the court terminated their parental rights altogether.  I mean, screw those kids, and WTF does that court know, anyway?

You mean a judgment by a court that had no jurisdiction to make the judgment in the first place?  It was a Louisiana court.  The parents and the kids are all Florida residents.  The court in LA had no right to make a custody determination.  UCCJEA (Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act) and PKPA(Parental Kidnapping Protection Act) both state that the children's home state is the state that has exclusive jurisdiction to make a custody determination; except in an emergency and only as long as the children are still present in the state where the emergency occurred.  There was an emergency in the sense that both parents were stoned out of their minds, but as soon as he was released from jail after the charge, he had every right to get his kids back.  At the time the LA court made the determination, the kids had been back in FL for months.  They had no jurisdiction to take his kids.

As for the waving the gun at foster care, it was alleged, and there were never charges brought and there are no outstanding warrants for it.  If the St Tammany Parrish Sheriff is willing to book the guy for a personal use marijuana charge and let him sit in jail for a week, what do you think they would do in those circumstances.  He may have had his gun in his holster which is entirely within his legal rights as Louisiana is an open carry state.

Cops said he was "talking out of his mind a bit."  No shiat.  He was stoned at the time.  Invariably any of my stoned conversations talk of taking a road trip or waxing philosophical and existential.  The Westboro Baptist Church members talk out of their mind all the farking time, but LA hasn't terminated any of its members' parental rights.

Given the circumstances that the guys entire criminal history(up until having his kids taken away from him at least), consists of the one marijuana possession charge that started this whole thing, rather than being demonized as an anti-government whack job, shouldn't there be an investigation into: 1. How a personal use weed possession charge can result in your kids being taken from you, and 2. How a court that has no jurisdiction to make a custody determination in the first place can do so and have it carry the force of law?  No.  fark it.  Let's just call the guy a whack job and be done with it.

BSABSVR: Especially given that pretty much all sides admit that this guy ziptied the grandmother and reabducted his kids.

It's a crime of passion and was done while unarmed.  But for the state of LA terminating parent's rights of FL residents over FL resident kids, it would not have happened.  The warrants pending for him are for burglary and battery, neither aggravated, which in FL would carry a mandatory 10 years and they would hit him with that if it were the case.  He was there to get his kids, not to hurt anyone.  Look at it from his perspective and his intent to leave the country.  He had two choices; spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to appeal a judgment from a court that had no standing, or spend a few grand as a down payment on a seaworthy boat and get the hell out.

aerojockey: I, for one, fully expect Cuba to graciously respect the same familial rights and custody laws we respected when we returned Elian Gonzales, and return this child to his legal guardian in America.

Looks like your expectations have been fulfilled. And they did it much quicker than we did.

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/21920225/2013/04/09/report-hakken -f amily-spotted-in-cuba

Hakken parents arrested; children safely back in U.S.

After sailing all the way to Cuba, accused kidnappers Joshua and Sharyn Hakken have been returned to the U.S., arrested, and booked in a Hillsborough County jail.

They face several charges, including kidnapping, child neglect, burglary with battery and interference in child custody. The couple will make their first appearance in court Thursday.

The boys, Chase and Cole, are back safely in the custody of their grandparents, deputies said. The sheriff's office says they were medically checked and appeared to be OK.

After the Hakkens were spotted in Cuba, U.S. and Cuban authorities worked together to get them back to Florida. The Hakkens, including their dog Nati, were flown back overnight - escorted by federal authorities.

They even sent the dog back.