Over on men’s rights hate site A Voice for Men, Attila Vinczer has found the true villain in the case of Walter Scott, the black man shot in the back after he ran from a white cop: Don’t blame the cop for shooting and killing a man who was no danger to him whatsoever; blame the ex-wife who simply wanted Scott to pay the child support he owed:
Another AVFM commenter seconded Vinczer’s, er, interpretation of events.
As did someone called TLC:
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the regulars, to their credit, were a bit more reluctant to see this as a Men’s Rights issue rather than a “white cop shooting black man despite being in no danger at all” issue. Well, some of them were, in any case. The others posted comments like this:
Dungone decided to spread the blame to evil feminists eager to cash in on sweet, sweet child support payments.
InBaggingArea offered the most succinct explanation:
It’s true that Scott owed child support. He had four children with two ex-wives and apparently owed thousands of dollars in child support for his two younger children; his family says this is the likely reason he ran, though we can’t be sure. Despite being behind on his payments, he was reportedly on good terms with his children, and saw them regularly.
Scott’s funeral was held today.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
“I can’t recall them blaming any natural disasters on women, but I have no doubt my memory is very fallible.”
There was a long tradition of NAMING certain natural disasters after women though!
Morris Dees and the SPLC are most famous for winning a civil suit Alabama’s United Klan of America for the family of a lynching victim in the late 1980s. Historically UKA was one of the most influential and violent Klan groups in the South. They were smaller but still around in the 80s until Dees’ civil suit, which bankrupted them. In a great bit of irony, the UKA were forced to give the lynching victim’s mother their land, including their headquarters.
IIRC, misha5678 is wrong and AVFM was not labeled as a hate group by SPLC.
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/05/15/intelligence-report-article-provokes-outrage-among-mens-rights-activists/
These guys talk a lot of trash and totally miss the point of child support. Child support reform started because long-term gov’t studies clearly showed that children of divorced parents who lived with their mothers had a significantly lower standard of living than children whose parents remained married, children who lived with their fathers, and even the later children of the same (remarried) divorced fathers and their new spouse. The federal gov’t pushed child support reforms onto the states as a way of helping the children – not the mothers. There is a formula that the courts must use and it certainly attempts to be fair. Further, it applies to both fathers and mothers equally. The non-custodial parent must pay 17% of their income for the first child and 25% for more than one child, so you pay the same amount for 2, 3, 4, etc. Even if you have 12 non-custodial children, you never have to exceed 25% of your income. That 17% or 25% is for both parents, so if there are multiple children and the mother makes $50,000 per year and the father makes $50,000 per year, and the parents split custody equally, then nobody pays child support. However, if the children spend 75% of their time with the father, then the mother pays 75% of $12,500 (25% of her income) to the father. Another example – If the parents split custody equally but the father makes $200,000 per year and the mother makes $50,000 per year, then the father pays the mother $18,750 per year to even it up for the children. Basically, each parent has an equal financial responsibility – based on their income – to their child(ren) . If a man has a child support responsibility to 6 children by six different mothers, then that 25% of his income is split 6 ways. It makes me so very angry when men say that child support is for the mothers!!! Custodial parents most likely pay more than 25% of their income to support their children just in day-to-day life (larger apartment/home, more food, clothing, school trips, etc.). It seems very fair to me that both parents have an equal financial burden towards their offspring.
Having said that, it’s beyond disgusting that these jerks would use this tragedy to promote their own agenda.
I chuckled aloud when I got to the “just curious” part of this comment. I’m just asking guys! No agenda or anything! Just exercising that ol’ human curiosity!
I don’t know how it works in other states, but in mine the state goes after you for failure to pay whether your ex complains or not. That money goes first to the state and then to the kids so the state knows when you are not paying. No woman sics the cops on you. The state does. If you flee to another state, you may get away.
You could have stopped there and been correct, sunshine.
Just how can these MRAs twist this into an Evil Wimminz problem?! And does this somehow supersede the obvious problem of white police officers shooting unarmed black men?
It’s not just an American problem either. Sadly, a similar thing happened where I live a few years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Fredy_Villanueva
(Even if you focus on Walter Scott’s jail record for not paying child support, that goes back to the criminalization of being black and/or poor, as other people more eloquently pointed out.)
While Walter Scott’s ex-wife/wives may not be personally responsible for what happened to him, child support enforcement in SC definitely played a role. This man was not a criminal. He served in the Coast Guard, which means he’s at least average in terms of competence and intelligence. His life wasn’t going so badly until he was put in the system following divorce. Then, it started to fall apart. It’s a common story, but usually ignored by the general public because a) most men are too ashamed to talk about it and b) there are a lot of bigots out there who despise poor parents.
The average white child support obligee, as of 2007, receives 62% of what she is owed. The average black obligee receives 44%. These figures only apply to mothers who receive something as opposed to nothing. This almost certainly means that most noncustodial fathers are in arrears. When a system makes most of its charges into debtors who can be jailed for contempt of court at a judge’s discretion without a jury trial, it’s clearly an unjust and abusive system, but nobody wants to touch it because it’s politically too risky.
The problem with US child support awards is, quite frankly, that they are too high for lower and even middle income fathers. This is compounded by the fact that noncustodial parents can no longer receive EIC or child tax credit for their children, and they cannot declare them as dependents. So when you are paying 25% of your income before taxes (standard for two children), and being taxed as though you were single without children, it’s a terribly onerous burden that actually discourages legitimate work. Hence the draconian penalties that act as a stick, because there is no carrot in this deal.
Say you are a low-income non-custodial father making 25k per year. You will probably pay 6k per year in child support and perhaps 4k in taxes. This leaves you with about $1,200/month to maintain a residence, a car and pay insurance. You’ll end up with perhaps a couple hundred a month to eat, save and entertain yourself and your kids if you want to maintain a relationship with them.
So what happens when your car breaks down and you need to get to work? Do you pay the mechanic and skip a CS payment so you can keep your job? Usually, yes, so you end up in arrears. Then, maybe, you get sick. Do you pay the deductible and go see a doctor? It’s a tossup, perhaps, depending on the illness/injury. You either hope you’re OK or, again, go into arrears. Go into arrears far enough and they seize your license, then you drive anyway to keep your job hoping you won’t get caught. But you didn’t have enough to fix that broken taillight, so you get pulled over and sent to jail for driving suspended. Then you lose your job. Next thing you know you’re $5,000 in arrears, and there’s a warrant out for your arrest.
This is life for a poor noncustodial father. It isn’t at all surprising that Walter Scott gave up, and eventually ran from the police to avoid another jail term.
The fact that he was shot for running is appalling, and the cop who did it deserves the same sentence as any common murderer (which he apparently is), but abusive child support policy is very much a part of this story. For poor black men and poor white and Hispanic men alike, it’s a modern form of peonage, and a national scandal. Politicized feminism, in my opinion, deserve a share of the blame for supporting the policies that treat these fathers as though they are less than full human beings, and deprive them of the civil rights enjoyed by other citizens (trial by jury, right to counsel, and right to clear debt through bankruptcy).
OK, that’s my two cents. Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother readers here, but I feel very strongly about this incident and I’ve decided that further politicizing the gender wars is counterproductive so I just wanted to suggest that this isn’t just about men or women and which one is to blame, but rather a serious matter of fundamental human rights and dignity. Hopefully Walter Scott didn’t die in vain, and Americans can start to take a hard look at the brutality with which our society treats its less fortunate families.
I hardly think that a policy that led to a policeman gunning down Walter Scott is something his children or ex wives really derived benefit from.
I’m pretty sure they are practicing attorneys well versed in civil rights law
and precedent.
But I’d like to know what your qualifications are.
WTF Price, long time no see.
@brooked, my bad, it’s categorized as a ‘misogynistic’ rather than, specifically, ‘hate’ site by the SPLC. But meh, that’s hatey enough to me. Tomato, potato.
Yeah, I’ve been kind of preoccupied with a baby and all that jazz.
But he and mama are taking a trip to Europe to visit grandma and grandpa for a while and enjoy the nice life of a Baltic resort town during the warmer months, so you’ll be seeing a lot more of me soon. I sincerely hope you are looking forward to it. 🙂
@ Bill Price- living paycheck to paycheck, I certainly can empathize with poor fathers or mothers who can’t really afford to lose 25% of their paychecks. However, like I explained above, the award is based on both parents’ income, so the custodial parent in your scenario is equally poor. Let’s say they both make 25k. For argument’s sake, let’s say the custodial parent is the mom. She still has to provide adequate support for her children. If the dad doesn’t pay, she is providing 100% of support from her 25k salary. She has medical bills same as him. Her car can break down too. Should she not feed her children to pay for her repair bill? Would society understand that it’s just too hard to adequately feed, house and clothe her children on her low salary and she needs her car? If it’s not okay for her to deny her children the basics of life because she’s poor, why is it okay for the dad? Because that’s what he’s doing. If the mom makes a lot more, then he is not paying her 25%, he’s paying a percentage of 25%. If he loses his job, then he must go back to court and ask for the order to be modified. Remember that the amount is based on income. If your income is 0, then 25% of 0 is 0. Child support is only to keep the child’s standard of living as close as possible to what it would have been if the parents were together. I am a single mother of three who has never even asked for child support (not worth the fight). I guarantee that a poor, single, custodial parent “pays” much more than 25% of their income to support their children. My car is broken down sitting outside my apartment building because I had to pay one of my children’s senior dues and another’s little league fees. Could I just say, well I really can’t afford all these hundreds of dollars. I shouldn’t have to suffer just so my kids can graduate high school or have a healthy hobby! Why should the entire financial burden fall on just one parent?
By the way, I know two women who pay their exes child support, and I worked with a Canadian woman who came here to avoid the penalties for not paying her child support. The men (and women) who cry about how unfair cs is, do so because they think that the money is going to their ex, and who would want that really? What they fail to realize is that the ex is paying the same amount or more to support their children every day.
While there’s definitely a problem with debt being treated as criminal activity among the poor in the US, that’s really a separate discussion to be had. It has no bearing on the responsibility for the actual crime committed in this case.
His debt situation may have motivated him to run from the police, which would have further compounded his legal woes, but that does not make him responsible for the crime committed against him.
It does not matter why he ran. Whether he feared debt would lead to a return to prison, had committed some unrelated petty crime and didn’t want to get caught, or was just scared of police brutality, he was non-violent; running should at most lead to a resisting arrest charge.
Running away from the police should never be justification for shooting someone in the back.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but I — a woman! — once didn’t pay the child support that I owed. Between the ages of 18 and 20, I ducked and dodged. Marshals finally showed up at my house to arrest me. I found for a lawyer and went to court. I paid my child support and fines and my wages were garnished.
If this were misandry by the “matriarchy,” I wouldn’t have this story to tell.
I call bullshit on their excuses as well. I wasn’t broken. My life and dreams weren’t shattered. My relationships were not destroyed. I was a selfish, irresponsible jackass who got what she deserved.
That’s a common misconception. Child support awards are in fact only based on the non-custodial parent’s income. A custodial mother could be pulling down 80k per year and it wouldn’t change the father’s obligation even if he made less than a third that amount.
For some reason they ask for both parents’ income on there forms, but I’ve done the numbers and it makes no difference. I think the courts just want to make it easier for attorneys to estimate how much they can extract from clients, and income declarations serve that purpose.
That isn’t how it works. If your income is 0, the court will impute income anyway, and it’s a lot harder to get a downward modification than people make it out to be. Attorneys charge a retainer of thousands of dollars to file a motion for modification to reduce.
And yes, poor single mothers shouldn’t be punished, but neither should poor single fathers. One is not morally superior to another, especially in these days of no-fault divorce. If courts order parents to pay, at the very least there should be jobs programs for the obligors, and incentives to hire them. Also, men shouldn’t be punished because their children’s mothers go on welfare. Usually, men are arrested for just that offense. Generally, if a woman isn’t on the dole, the case is ignored.
Providing for more even distribution of custodial time would solve most of these problems. It works in the Nordic countries, so why not here? Are Americans somehow less fit to parent their children? I honestly think that if guys like Walter Scott had the opportunity to help raise their children by putting in their time it would be good not only for the Walter Scotts of the world, but the kids as well. The only losers would be the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers or whatever they call themselves. Trust me, mothers’ lives would be a lot easier if fathers looked after their kids half the time. Especially poor ones, because the time is worth more than the child support in all but the higher income brackets. Why keep a system that only really benefits upper middle class divorcées to the detriment of everyone else?
@Bill Price:
I want you to notice something. You tend to take situations that aren’t global, usually worst-case scenarios, and treat them as global. Child support awards are in fact based on more than the non-custodial parent’s income, in some states. In others, it’s mainly about the ncp’s income. In some cases, a court can impute income if they believe the ncp is not reporting their income honestly for the purpose of avoiding payments. Not in every case. Hell, there’s apparently systems in place to provide a form of welfare to ncps who legitimately don’t have an income.
Sorry, even if you’re raising a valid issue, your framing undermines your argument. A system that is designed unjustly needs to be treated differently than a system that occasionally has unjust things occur. Absent an actual presentation of statistics (and not you claiming you “ran the numbers”), and with pretty much every credible website on the subject saying that the law is structured to make child support payments viable, nobody can take your extreme-case arguments seriously.
But basically everything Kagato said. This is not a relevant discussion to the crime committed in this story. Walter Scott’s death was not caused by lack of contact with his children; it was caused by a cop with a gun and without a regard for a black life.
@kirbywarp
These aren’t extreme cases. Most NCPs (non-custodial parents) are in arrears, and in fact female NCPs are more likely to be in arrears and they pay less of their (income-based) obligations than male NPCs.
Imputation is not only in some cases, but in all cases where the NCP has negligible or no income. Even if you are locked up in prison, income is imputed. Even if you are being held as a POW income is imputed. Even, in fact, if you are in a vegetative state you are required to pay child support. It’s the law.
As for the states that factor in the custodial parents’ income and use it to reduce NCP obligations, name one, please. I doubt such a state exists, because federal matching funds are granted for every dollar collected, so there’s an incentive to push obligations up as high as possible in every state in the Union. The only mitigating factor is that a judge may be less inclined to imprison an NPC when the custodial parent is well-to-do.
The system absolutely is designed unjustly, as are many systems in the United States today. It isn’t a coincidence that we have long had the world’s highest incarceration rate for developed countries as well as the most punitive family law policies on earth. No other country in the world is so hard on NCPs as the US. None.
@Bill Price:
Citation, please. Not random examples of individual cases which may or may not have been decided poorly; an actual citation that the law states income must be imputed if the obligor has zero or little income, or statistics that show this is the result of all cases.
There are three general models for child support payment calculations. Two of them are the types you deny; taking into account the custodial parent’s income and various other parental and child needs.
The linked source names the guideline type for every state as well as links to the actual law in question. Only 10 states (by my count) use the “Percentage of Obligor’s Income.”
@Bill Price:
And what percentage of those NCPs in arrears are truly unable to meet their obligations? What percentage were placed under an unreasonable obligation in the first place? What percentage of those NCPs in arrears face legal reprucussions like jail time? Do you even know? Or are you generalizing again, this time with some broad statistics that you interpret poorly? “All of them” is not an answer unless you actually provide some evidence.
Let’s not forget that the reason mothers are usually the primary custody holders is that the fathers are not seeking custody. I have never seen one shred of evidence that fathers are routinely denied custody and then forced to pay unreasonable amounts of child support. Whenever MRAs claim that the system is unjust to fathers, they only have personal anecdotes and we don’t get to either the mother’s or court’s side.
Income shares (which include Delaware’s model) and percentage model are just two different paths to the same result. With income shares they take both parents’ income, then come up with a base child support obligation for each parent, which is based on the percentage each parent contributes.
So say you have one parent whose obligations are $1,200 per month (custodial parent) and another whose obligations are $800/month. This is a total of $2,000/month CS calculated from both parents’ income (let’s say combined income of $8,000/month). However, the custodial parent doesn’t have to pay a dime of their child support — it’s just on the books. The $1,200/month only kicks in if there’s a change in custody. The NCPs obligation is calculated from the NCP’s income, as a percentage of his/her income, so it works out exactly the same as the percent of NCP income model. No difference.
The only time obligations are reduced due to custodial parent’s superior income are when they affect add-ons, such as private school tuition, insurance, college costs, etc. These do not apply to lower income CS cases, for obvious reasons. They concern (mostly upper) middle class cases and above, as in when one parent is a doctor and the other a teacher.
If both parents are low income it’s just a straight up percentage no matter what formula.
You don’t have to believe me — check it out for yourself by running the numbers.
Actually, the straight percentage model is probably most humane for NCPs, because they can’t be threatened with add-ons by the CP’s lawyer, but in any event that would be beside the point in most CS cases.
Truly unable is a matter of subjective opinion, I guess. If they were housed in a penal institution and forced to work on a chain gang every day to pay the support I suppose most of them could meet the obligations. If they want to maintain a decent standard of living with a residence and transportation, most of them are unable. But maybe you don’t think they deserve that, even if they never wanted to become non-custodial parents in the first place. I know a lot of people share that opinion.
As for what percentage were placed under an unreasonable obligation, I would say all of them according to European standards. Every last one. US child support guidelines are the highest on earth, even though as a society we are falling behind a lot of other countries on living standards and economic mobility.
What percentage face legal repercussions? All of them if they go into arrears. Even if you are not in arrears there are legal repercussions. Your name is entered into a database and you are assigned a child support agent, sort of like a parole officer. Fall behind just a few weeks and they seize your bank account.
OK, got to finish up business. Happy tax day!
Happy tax day, Bill. Come back when you can actually back up your assertions.