"Don't Regret A Thing": 63 People Reveal Why They Called CPS Or Police On Somebody They Knew

I called CPS on a 55 year old woman who was the sole caretaker of her 95 year old mother. I knew the 95 year old woman from my church and noticed something was off when she asked my mother and I for our lunch leftovers. We bought her a sandwich and sat with her while she ate. She confided in us that she had tried to [end] herself by overdosing on medication a few days earlier, but could not open the prescription pill bottle. I was horrified that a 95 year old woman wanted to commit suicide. I kept talking with her and she revealed that her daughter had basically made her a prisoner in her own home without food, access to a shower, or any socialization. I believed her because of how upset she was. She just seemed grateful that two people cared about what she had to say. I'm a mandated reporter, so I went ahead and reported everything she said. I'm not sure what ended up happening, but I hope for the best.

I called on my childhood best friend. She was living with a man who regularly held a gun to her head in front of her five year old son.

I called again on a neighbor, because her estranged husband attempted to run her over in the parking lot of our apartments, and this lady grabbed her four-year-old daughter so the guy would stop and not run her over. Saddest [thing] I've ever seen in my life.

My friend and former neighbour is an alcoholic with a little girl. One day a couple years ago, some random guy called me to come and get her because she was passed out on the sidewalk with her daughter in the stroller. I didn't call the police that time but someone must have, because they showed up. My husband and I ended up fostering the child for a few days.

She soon got her daughter back, but less than even a week later, her friend called me to come and pick them up because they were in some guy's house and my friend was passed out drunk and her daughter was scared. I couldn't get her to tell me where they were so I called CPS and they called the police.

It turned out they were at the house of the guy who had called me the first time, and apparently he was a s*x offender (but not to children, as far as I understand, thank goodness).

She has cut me off mostly, and I'm having enough of my own problems currently, but I hope she's managed to kick the habit and that her daughter is safer now.

I found out my friend got pregnant deliberately (she told everyone it was an accidental) so she could get more welfare, and so her family would feel obligated to help them, since they didn't want to work. (Always scheming some new way to get disability.)

Their daughter was severely underweight. In and out of the hospital due to my friend trying to find a reason to get money for her.

So when they brought their one year old over to my house, did not bring food, and basically starved her for three days, I snapped and called. My friend said she "didn't have an appetite." When I gave her food for the kid, my friend would eat it all, giving her child a small bite. I'd have to sneak her kid off to feed her and she ate SO much. I realized she was doing it on purpose to keep her kid underweight.

Nothing came of it, of course. Her child is now three, still wearing six month clothes. They neglect her to play video games and their family pays for everything whole my friend is in "college." Aka: free board and bills. She's a piece of work.

She was having her 9 year old son "babysit" her 14 month old daughter while she went out with her boyfriend to get [illegal subtances]. Her daughter won't eat or drink anything besides milk and her teeth are rotting because she just sticks a bottle in her mouth at night and the milk is dripping and pooling on her front teeth. It's sad and her kids deserve better.

My mom did for me once. I was thirteen and a lady contacted me to watch her baby while she went out for New Years. That was later than I was usually allowed to sit but my parents made an exception for NYE as long as I was home by 2 am. She picked me up at 8 pm and I thought she smelled funny but I was a pretty sheltered kid so I wrote it off as a weird cologne.

I got to her house and the baby was only eight days old (she told me eight months on the phone). I'd never babysat for a little one that young but had been around little guys my whole life so figured it wasn't a big deal. Mom took off without saying a word to me other than the baby should sleep the whole time.

The baby woke up about 10 pm. There was dried p**p all over the crib mattress which was bare. I figured I'd try to clean it and put a sheet on it after I fed the little girl. I went to make a bottle, only to discover there was no breast milk or formula in the house. I tore the pantry apart while holding a screaming newborn looking and finally found a scant tbsp of formula shoved in a drawer on top of dirty diapers. She had been storing diapers in a deep kitchen drawer. The smell was awful and there was no way I could make a bottle from that little formula stored in a filthy drawer.

I finally called my mom in a panic when it was clear I had no way to feed the baby. She went and bought a can of similac and came to help. We cleaned the baby's room and emptied the dirty diaper drawer into the trash - their garage was stuffed to the brim with trash too. 2 am came and went. Then 3, 4, 5 am...my mom called the cops at 6 when the parents still hadn't come home. The baby drank four 4 oz bottles ravenously. The cops came and then CPS came to take the baby.

Later the caseworker called to interview me and my mom, and told us she was glad we called because the baby had lost a pound and half since birth. It's likely she hadn't been fed properly and both parents were on oxy and weed. The baby tested positive for something, but I don't remember what it was.

Edit to add: I asked my mom because it was bothering me that details were hazy. The baby was positive for codeine - the parents had been giving her cough syrup so she would sleep a lot of the time. My mom said the whole house was filthy and she was shocked to be honest that they had hired me because that level of neglect would suggest they would have maybe just left the baby alone rather than spend money on a sitter. The caseworker told her that they didn't find the parents until the next evening so they might have been just abandoning the baby anyway or were hazily aware they had SOME responsibility to keep the baby alive. And the mom wasn't on oxy, it was h****n.

I live in India, and once my mother called the police on a neighbor who was severely abusive to his wife and two children. He would drag his wife out by her hair, kick and beat her in front of us. He'd beat his kids(10F and 7M) black and blue, and did not even bother covering it up. My mother called the police on him the first time she saw it going down.

The CI came after 45 minutes, by then he was done beating her. After he saw the wife's bruises, he beat the man and then warned him. That was it. He did not do anything. The older girl had a severely bruised lip, very clearly visible and he still didn't do anything, despite my mothers insistence. The man gave his wife AND the poor kids another beating for calling the cops on him. We have no CPS in India, and my mother had to contact an NGO to get help. The woman was very reluctant to accept the help or file a complaint, understandably. The abuse went on for another 2-2.5 years until the court case concluded.

All this shows how mandatory CPS is. The present system is too time consuming.

An ex-friend of mine was driving under the influence with her 6 month old in the car. Nothing came of it.

A "friend" of mine would go out and party almost every night and leave her then 4 year old at home alone. I called CPS on her. They said that they couldn't do anything because they never caught her in the act of leaving the child unattended. Turns out she was really close to the CPS person.

When I was eighteen, my best friend had her child. She was nineteen. A very lazy person, didn't matter. She had a lot of help raising her kid (my goddaughter.) She made the right choice and broke up with her boyfriend/kids' dad due to a***e. But the next guy she dated was worse. Military, which is fine. Tons of good military dads. Except when Kid got in trouble he would make her do rigorous exercises to punish her. She developed Trichotillomania. (Pulling out her own hair during stressful situations.) When she knew she would get in trouble for something, she'd put herself in the corner and start smacking her head against the wall until someone pulled her away. This kid was three years old. All while kid's mom watched.

I don't even feel bad for calling.

I called CPS on my uncle after my cousin (5) called and told me her mom had beat her because she made a mess trying to make food in the middle of the night. After she said it you could hear both my uncle and his girlfriend screaming at her to shut up and telling her she was going to bet taken away and put with strangers if she told people . Including me, they have had 7 people call and report them for child a***e. Im waiting to see if I can take her if she ends up being removed from the home.

I called police when my housemate was having a full-on psychotic breakdown. Hearing voices, attempting suicide, when we wouldn't let her [do it] she turned on us (me and her partner). It's surprising what a person experiencing psychosis will turn into a weapon. Thankfully, we had martial arts training and she's not very big or strong. It ended with her partner tackling her down, then me pinning her to the floor in a choke hold until she stopped struggling (not choked out but realised she wasn't going anywhere until she calmed), and her partner calling the police and ambulance. I stayed sitting on top of her with her arms locked until the police came and took over - she was calmer but shaking and crying by the time the police turned up.

That was one of my less fun nights in uni sharehouses. Thankfully though, she got the help she needed and is still alive because he and I cared enough to fight her and call the cops. Some people might not have wanted to take her on, or she may have been alone in the house or something.

I had to on a roommate. I was dating a guy who rented the third bedroom in an apartment with a couple and their two kids 2F and 7M. The father worked over 16 hours a day and when he came home he just slept (understandable). The mom on the other hand, was unemployed and spent most of her time sleeping on the couch while the kids ran wild.

The house was in complete disarray most of the time. Dirty dishes growing mold and literally stacked half way up to the ceiling. Piles of laundry just thrown everywhere, if it was on the floor it was dirty, if it was on the couch or some other surface it was 'clean'. They didn't own a vacuum so there was layers of grime on the carpet. They had a dog who would sh;t on the floor and instead of cleaning it up they would just throw something on top of it. The whole place smelled like feces. You couldn't even see the floor in the kid's room. I could write a book on how bad this place was.

Now, I was desperate for a place to stay or at least hang out because I had a very abusive home life ( I was 17). I had a part time job so with what little money I had I stocked up on cleaning supplies and scrubbed that place top to bottom. I got the apartment at least semi livable.

Eventually, the family went out of town for about a week and I took a chance. My grandmother happened to have a bunch of paint left over from when she redid her house and allowed me to have some of it. I repainted the entire apartment. I knew somebody who had a Kirby (very high end multipurpose deep cleaning appliance). I got the carpets back to their original light brown (they were almost black). I even steam cleaned the furniture and buffed the hard surfaces until they were scuff free and had shine again.

I did all of the laundry which was over 30 loads, I'm so glad they had their own washer and dryer. I then organized the clothes in their various dressers and I bought hangers so the closets could be used. I organized pretty much everything they owned by color and by category. Everything looked brand new and picture perfect by the time I was done.

When they came home, the dad was grateful, like in tears happy that somebody did this for them. The kids looked amazed and relived, they were over joyed that their bedroom wasn't littered with old diapers anymore. Their smiles were priceless. The mom though... she was piiiisssssed that somebody could have the nerve to go through her stuff. Suffice it to say she got over it after a couple of days. We managed to keep the place clean for a few months after that.

The bf and I decided to go camping for a week. When we came back.. the apartment was literally 10x worse than it was. We opened the door and the smell hit like a brick wall. We found the kids locked in their room, crying. The 2yr old's diaper looked like it hadn't been changed in days. There was dog sh;t smeared in the hallways. Couldn't even find the floor in the living room, the kitchen had maggots on the counters. The mom was passed out in the bed room and all the dad's stuff was gone (turns out he left her for her sh;t and she wouldn't let him take the kids.)

So we got the kids cleaned up and took them to a friend's house. We called CPS and told them everything. Custody was given to the Grandparents. We moved out after the incident but last I heard she was dating a s*x offender and had another kid. The original kids are still with their grandparents and doing well.

TL;DR - Cleaned up a trashed house to make safe for kids, didn't last long, called CPS.

I called CPS on a child during work. He showed me bruises on his arms and said "Look at all the boo boos she gives me! Thats illegal!" I asked him if he wanted me to tell someone, and he asked who I would tell. I told him my boss, and CPS. Apparently they got a lot of calls from CPS already. The good part is, he was able to move out away from his a****r. He seems a lot happier and safer :).

I discovered that my ex-wife was leaving her two young children in the care of a registered s*x offender her while she went off to score [illegal substances].

A little late. My mom once called CPS on my friend's mom. My friend had a lot of issues, but she was a walk in the park compared to her mother. Her mom was violent, passive aggressive, and blamed her children for everything. One day during theatre rehearsal, my friend's mom shows up and pretty much drags her out of the classroom. I never saw her again.

We spoke on the phone a few years later. Turns out someone (who would later reveal themselves to be my mom) called CPS. I don't know if it was court ordered or what, but her mom dragged her out that day, took her home and told her she had 10 minutes to pack, and put her on a plane to go live with her dad, who she had never met. Turns out, he was a lot better. He got her into therapy, and all kinds of [stuff] came out. My friend's mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had been giving her daughter her own pills since early childhood.

She left her kids unattended in the bath tub to go outside to smoke. She would also put the baby in his pack and play outside in our communal area and go back in the house to do housework or watch tv. She also left the baby home alone while she went to the shop. Sadly nothing came of it, and she takes that as a sign that she is the best mother in the world and it has given her a renewed do-whatever-i-want attitude.

Needless to say we are no longer friends.

A Facebook friend posted pictures of broken belongings, holes in walls and wrote a bunch of text indicating that her boyfriend did ya things when they fought. I was present when she had called the cops on him for threatening her life over some drama (can't recall what it was at all at this point). They had an infant in the house, so I called it in. She had already lost other children she to unstable living situations prior to this child being born, and I felt certain the infant would end up getting hurt if it stayed. Having been witness to their screaming matches, I was also certain that it was not a happy place for a baby to grow.

Half my extended family called CPS on the other half. I have a side of the family that's full of money, drugs, and felons. A lot of those felons have kids.

We've called for child abuse and elder abuse, but only the child abuse half came to anything (that I'm aware of). The social worker drove down to the property and found the twin two-year-old boys wandering in the middle of the road. There was a lake on the property and he'd already been there once because the kids were unsupervised. Just took them with him when he left.

I've also had to call in reports due to my job. I'm a mandated reporter and I'm regularly in elementary schools.

I called CPS on my mom's boyfriend when I was twelve. My mom, her boyfriend, his daughter who is nine months older than me and I all lived together. He was always somewhat violent with his daughter from what I recall.

The memory is vague but I remember him dragging her up and down the stairs in our house by her hair when I was less than ten. I can't place how old I was but I can remember that.

As she got older, it got worse. She was humiliated by him (and my mom). She wasn't allowed to sit in the cab of the truck after she got her first period so she wouldn't bleed on the upholstery. (Often this meant sitting in the bed of a pickup that had a cover over it which is dangerous and can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning). She was forced to clean the bird p**p from sketchy attic of the shop on our property by herself, alone. He screamed at her calling her ugly, stupid, and worthless. He would throw things at her and kick her. This was just the beginning.

She would steal things regularly and was "overweight" (in retrospect I don't know if she really was. I think it was just an exaggeration but my memories are filtered through what I was told). When I was eleven and twelve I was paid money to lock her out of the house after school so she couldn't eat the food or steal things from my mom and her boyfriend. This was in the middle of the winter. She didn't have a coat. (I'm ashamed of how long it took me to realize how bad that was. I was taught she was horrible and that's what she deserved. I wish I knew better.)

Her dad started screaming at her, kicking her and throwing things at her more frequently. I would hide in my room during these moments. Finally one day I broke down. I went and told a teacher, and then got a feeing I should call CPS myself. CPS had been called countless times but his daughter and I always lied and nothing came of it. I knew the only way they'd take it seriously is if I called. I was in seventh grade.

It was hell after that. The police went to his work and attempted to arrest him but for some reason didn't. They told him things I'd said to CPS but didn't credit it to me. These were things no one but those in the house knew. He blamed his daughter and it got worse for her for awhile. At some point it came out it was me who reported. He never physically a****d her again at least in front of me (I'm sure it still happened), but things never got better for her.

My mom once put exlax in the milk because she thought this poor girl was drinking too much. When she was a junior in high school she ran away across the country and no one even looked for her. One time she told her dad she had been sexually assaulted and he laughed at her.

My mom and this guy are still together. I'm in my mid twenties. It takes all I can do not to scream at my mom sometimes for what she did and what she allowed. The boyfriends daughter is doing decently from what I hear. We don't talk. She has a job and her grandparents help her make ends meet. She still talks to her dad and my mom. It's frustrating. My mom has no concept of what her actions and inactions did. He definitely doesn't. He is literally one of the dumbest and laziest people I've ever met.

This got long and writing this makes me realize I really need to go back to counseling.