When does a snapshot of a mother breast-feeding her child become kiddie porn?

1-Hour Arrest

When does a snapshot of a mother breast-feeding her child become kiddie porn? Ask the Richardson police.

BY THOMAS KOROSEC

The service was fast, the judgments even hastier. Never did Jacqueline Mercado imagine that four rolls of film dropped off at an Eckerd Drugs one-hour photo lab near her home would turn her life inside out, threaten to send her to jail and prompt the state to take away her kids.
For Mercado and her family, last fall was a happy time, one they wanted to record and save in the venerable tradition of the family photo. Johnny Fernandez, Mercado's boyfriend, had just emigrated from Lima, Peru, ending a yearlong separation, and on top of that, it was their son's first birthday.

The photographs they took over several days in late October included pictures of Fernandez reunited with the family at their modest home in suburban Richardson. Others captured their 1-year-old son Rodrigo, and 4-year-old Pablizio, from Mercado's earlier marriage, playing in a neighborhood park. Using the camera's timer, they also took three snapshots of themselves, naked in their bed. They arranged their bodies in ways that showed less flesh than most freeway billboards.

A half-dozen others recorded the kids at bath time. Fernandez took several photos of the boys "playing around," naked and innocent, with the oldest flashing a big smile. Mercado, who says she often bathed with the kids, is in several of the shots unclothed from the waist up, holding her arm modestly across her bare chest.

In one--the photo that would threaten to send Mercado and her boyfriend to prison--the infant Rodrigo is suckling her left breast.

After Mercado dropped off the film for processing, a technician viewed the images and decided they were "suspicious," according to a police report. As required under Texas law, he immediately contacted local police. Mercado says that when she went to pick up her pictures, the clerk told her there would be a delay, and then only returned three of the four sets of prints.

To Richardson police, who arrived at the store that afternoon and apparently made up their minds from the content of the pictures alone, this was nothing short of a felony case of child pornography. "We thought they contained sexuality," says Sergeant Danny Martin, a Richardson police spokesman, explaining why two Richardson police detectives began pursuing a criminal case. "If you saw the photos, you'd know what I mean."

With nothing else to support their contention that the photos were related to sex or sexual gratification, the police and the Dallas County District Attorney's Office presented the photos to a grand jury in January and came away with indictments against Mercado and Fernandez for "sexual performance of a child," a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The charges centered on a single photo, the breast-feeding shot. Fernandez and Mercado say they took it--although the child had ceased breast-feeding--to memorialize that stage of their baby's development.

"We wanted to see if he would take it, and he did," says Mercado, explaining through an interpreter that it was a spur-of-the moment notion to which they gave little thought. "Johnny never saw the child breast-feeding, so this was for memories. For us."

Mercado, who brushed back strands of brown hair from her reddened eyes as she spoke, has a story that has not changed from the start. She told the Richardson police officer who responded to the store's call that she had always taken pictures of her children nude, and that it wasn't uncommon in her native Peru to do so. They were innocent baby pictures, taken for the family's benefit, she said.

Five days later, when a state child welfare investigator and two detectives arrived at her house, Mercado again insisted that she saw nothing wrong with the photos. She allowed the group to search the couple's cramped room, and the detectives went through everything, including their photo albums, apparently looking for more evidence of child porn. They found nothing.

"We fought so hard to come to this country," says Mercado, a 33-year-old who was a nurse in Peru and aspires to become licensed in the United States one day. "For this to happen is unbelievable."

Andrew Chatham, one of three lawyers working on behalf of Mercado and her boyfriend, says it is difficult to imagine a clearer case of over-reaching by police and prosecutors. "Their theory, which is supported by nothing, is that these pictures were taken to satisfy the boyfriend's sexual desires. These aren't pictures that were peddled on the open market. This wasn't on someone's Web site. This is just a mother who took a roll of film and left it off at Eckerd's. The state used them to arrest her, indict her for a felony and take away her kids."

On November 13, the day Richardson police "tossed" or searched Mercado's house, a caseworker with the Dallas County Child Protective Services Unit of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services took custody of the children and recommended to a family judge that they be placed in a foster home. The caseworker's notes state that a supervisor, acting on the content of the photos alone, decided that "the children needed to be removed from their mother's care."

Her hard-rubbed eyes drooping with worry, Mercado says she told the caseworker, "Please don't take our children. We love our children."

In the months since, one of the couple's most onerous problems has been resolved. In late March, a week after the Dallas Observer asked District Attorney Bill Hill about the case, he ordered the criminal charges against both parents dropped. "It has some gray areas to it, but it doesn't rise to the level of a crime," Hill said. He said justice comes from more than isolating facts and interpreting them in a way to make them narrowly fit into a criminal statute.

Still, at press time, child welfare authorities continue to maintain control of the boys, even though a lawyer appointed to represent them says he believes they should go home. In its latest legal filing, the state said it would not consent to releasing the boys until the couple jumps through more hoops, including a lie-detector test they must take at their own expense.

"They ripped out my heart," Mercado says. "Even if we get them back, I don't know how we'll recover from what's been done."

"How could they accuse me of doing something with our own children?" says Fernandez, a lanky 35-year-old who worked as a hospital technician in Peru before embarking on his disastrous start in Texas. "How can they accuse us of being something we're not?"

It wasn't difficult at all.

Read more here:

http://dallasobserver.com/issues/200...l/1/index.html

[Element4040]

Very sad indeed!

[Ash]

If that's the case, then I would have already been locked up and had the key thrown away. Sometimes the world just doesn't seem right.

[Adam D]

I used to work at wal-mart in the photo lab...people bring in some wierd ass crap. I've seen some nasty stuff come through. Not the acts...just the people. At wal-mart, if there was concern of child porn, then we were supposed to ask a manager to make a determination on whether or not to call the police. One time there was this probably 40 something year old guy who would come in often and drop off rolls of film with boys, probably around 16 or so in just boxers, many in semi-sexual poses. He would get very nervous dropping off film and very irate if there was a delay on them. One time I got ahold of his pictures and looked at them, and decided to contact a manager. I ended up with the stupidest assistant manager in the place, and he didn't see anything wrong with it. I explained that it wasn't the first time he had done this, and I thought that the police should be contacted and allow them to determine whether or not this was child porn. He still said no, we argued for a while, quite loudly in the middle of the store, and then an employee from another department went and told another manager, and I ended up in the store manager's office getting yelled at by another manager. My response was that since I worked in a different division of the store, it didn't really matter what they thought. That got me in some trouble with my manager who said not to say things like that even if it's true. Moral of the story? There isn't really much of a standard when it comes to situations like this.

As far as her being topless in many of the pictures, I would say it's hard to prove anything wrong was going on there, a lot of families seem to be very open about being naked. Mine wasn't, but I know several people where that was the norm. Now the kid sucking on his mom's jugg...is a little suspect. I don't think it was really a good idea for them to do. It's like we would tell people at wal-mart, if you want pictures like that, get a polaroid. But who knows, maybe something really was going on there.

and of course it happens in Richardson
fucking rediculous
I wanna go down to the court hosue and chew out those motherfuckers right now

Originally posted by Adam D
I used to work at wal-mart in the photo lab...people bring in some wierd ass crap. I've seen some nasty stuff come through. Not the acts...just the people. At wal-mart, if there was concern of child porn, then we were supposed to ask a manager to make a determination on whether or not to call the police. One time there was this probably 40 something year old guy who would come in often and drop off rolls of film with boys, probably around 16 or so in just boxers, many in semi-sexual poses. He would get very nervous dropping off film and very irate if there was a delay on them. One time I got ahold of his pictures and looked at them, and decided to contact a manager. I ended up with the stupidest assistant manager in the place, and he didn't see anything wrong with it. I explained that it wasn't the first time he had done this, and I thought that the police should be contacted and allow them to determine whether or not this was child porn. He still said no, we argued for a while, quite loudly in the middle of the store, and then an employee from another department went and told another manager, and I ended up in the store manager's office getting yelled at by another manager. My response was that since I worked in a different division of the store, it didn't really matter what they thought. That got me in some trouble with my manager who said not to say things like that even if it's true. Moral of the story? There isn't really much of a standard when it comes to situations like this.

As far as her being topless in many of the pictures, I would say it's hard to prove anything wrong was going on there, a lot of families seem to be very open about being naked. Mine wasn't, but I know several people where that was the norm. Now the kid sucking on his mom's jugg...is a little suspect. I don't think it was really a good idea for them to do. It's like we would tell people at wal-mart, if you want pictures like that, get a polaroid. But who knows, maybe something really was going on there.

If they had been born or raised in the US, I could understand the cops over questioning her intentions, but considering they are from another country, I think it is wrong not to take into consideration that their belief systems and ideas on nudity and breast feeding may be completely different than what the American norm might be.

Even though polygraphs are not 100% true, I would like to know what the results are.

[Dribbles]

I used to work at a photo lab and honestly at times I don't have time to really look at the pictures. I have other things to do like find other peoples pictures and be a cashier. Moving at a fast pace I'm surprised that the person in the photo lab had the time to look at all the pictures and go through the process of calling the police and all that. Really though I would chew out the people at the store.

[Mr. Sam]

I dont really see it as "wrong" but just fucking odd. Yes, i AM American. I dont see how getting someone to act as if they are breast feeding is "for the family".

Yes, i have never had a kid.

But still....

If they really wanted those pictures to be "for them" wouldnt they have taken them while he was ACTUALLY breastfeeding?

Yes, they are from another country.

Thats cool, but this is America, and what they should know when coming to America is that we are NOT their country. We view things differently.

[ravcutie02]

My father took a picture of my mom breast feeding me in the hospital......the camera isn't all on her boob.....it's just a shot from across the room with me against my mother's chest.....and a very small patch of white from her breast under the hospital gown.....it's actually one of the most sentimental pictures that I own....breast feeding is a very natural thing and is a major factor in the mother child bond......and if I were a father I would see it as my wife feeding our child.....it's very symbolic and only in AMERICA would that be taken the wrong way....

The American opinion of breast feeding has become down right fucking stupid anyways.....I remember this Hispanic woman breast feeding her baby rather descretely(sp?) in the mall restroom and these fucking white snob bitches saying shit like" Oh my god that is so trashy." The woman just looked so humilitated......

so of course I opened my big mouth and told them it they didn't like it they should go piss outside....

MY BURNING QUESTION IS: WHEN DID THE U.S BECOME SO PERVERSE THAT IT'S OK TO LICK YOUR HUSBAND OR WIFES ASS BUT ITS DISGUSTING OR PERVERSE TO FEED YOUR CHILD?

Well I gotta get out of this thread cause I've gotten myself all pissed off.....let me go conceal my "child porn picture" so my mother and father aren't arrested....

[ravcutie02]

Originally posted by XtCx13x
I dont really see it as "wrong" but just fucking odd. Yes, i AM American. I dont see how getting someone to act as if they are breast feeding is "for the family".

Yes, i have never had a kid.

But still....

If they really wanted those pictures to be "for them" wouldnt they have taken them while he was ACTUALLY breastfeeding?

Yes, they are from another country.

Thats cool, but this is America, and what they should know when coming to America is that we are NOT their country. We view things differently.

PLEASE NEVER INCLUDE "WE" IN ANY FUTURE POST THAT YOU MAY HAVE....I AM AN AMERICAN AND MR. XTC YOU AND I DO NOT SHARE THE SAME VIEWS AT ALL.

thanks......I think others would appreciate the same respect.....I am not a Nazi or a white supremist(sp?) and the term we need not be applied...America is an individualist society and not a collective one....by using "we" you would imply all of those who wish not to be included in your statement.....I am an individual...

[The Real Rick Springfield]

i've seen the picture in question and read the article. while i don't think the photo rises to the level of pornography, it is *definately* a little strange.

the father was out of the country during the time in the child's life when he was breast-feeding. i understand that the breast feeding time in a child's life is HUGELY important in the south american culture. he missed out on a special time in the child's life and wanted a memento of it.

however, if you are unable to be there for that time, a photograph could be taken for you DURING THAT TIME -- not upon your return home as was the case here. this breast feeding incident was staged for the purpose of taking the photo using a child that was too old or was no longer breast feeding.

like i said, the photo isn't pornographic to me, it's just strange. the child is standing on a box or something and the mother is presenting her breast to him. every breast feeding i've ever seen, it involves a mother cradling her child not standing up with her top off holding her breast out for the child.

i feel for this couple though. the justice system really did a number on them. they were railroaded from the start.

as mentioned before, get a polaroid and know the laws of where you live.

john

Thats cool, but this is America, and what they should know when coming to America is that we are NOT their country. We view things differently.

As a country composed of a shitload of varieties in immigrants, I don't think nationalism plays a very legitimate role here.

Peru... America... Peru... America...I can't imagine there's any confusion about which country they are in.

"We view things differently." We do...yeah, and so do you and I...and him...and her...and them.. WHAT'S THE POINT? There's no unanimous vote on what's "right" here. There never is..shouldn't you know this as an American? Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

As for the article, what a crock of shit! I wouldn't do this personally, but I doubt the intentions were sexual. I think the judgement is all too culturally narrow-minded.