Online Group Bullied This Family For Years: Then CPS Showed Up

Quick Facts:

• JD and Britney Lott and their eight children were targeted with malicious and false CPS reports by a Reddit group that tracked and berated them online for years.
• Family Freedom Project mounted a rapid response to defend the family against a CPS-imposed deadline only hours away.
• Filing a false CPS report is a felony. After intervention from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s office, local police opened a criminal investigation into the Redditor’s conduct.
• Nationally, 1 out of every 3 American children will be investigated by CPS before the age of 18. For black children, the rate is 1 out of every 2.
• The Lotts are calling for system-wide CPS reforms, pointing to Texas where bi-partisan lawmakers and advocates have dramatically reduced child removals by CPS, reduced child deaths from abuse and neglect, and reduced the number of children waiting in foster care all at the same time. [source]

8/8/2024 Update:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ office released a statement pushing for an investigation of the Redditors who filed false CPS reports against the Lotts. Governor DeSantis’ communications director, Bryan Griffin, stated,

“Utilizing government entities to make false reports or harass others is unacceptable and will be referred to law enforcement for investigation and ultimately prosecution.”

On August 1st, Florida CPS released a statement confirming that they had referred the case to law enforcement for a criminal investigation. 

The Florida police contacted the Lott family and confirmed that a criminal investigation was being opened into the Reddit users who were responsible for the false accusations.

When the Lott’s story originally went public, some of the users on the Subreddit r/fundiesnarkuncensored celebrated the CPS visit, while others accused the Lotts of fabricating the story.

In response to the massive backlash, the release of screenshots showing Reddit users admitting to the CPS reports, and the announcement of a criminal investigation, the tone changed. The subreddit was temporarily shut down by moderators but is now back online.

Users expressed relief and excitement about its return. “Just saying I’m glad we are back up and running and able to snark on those poor oppressed souls – the fundies.” – Subreddit User

Moderators have scrubbed the group of virtually any mention of the Lott family and informed users that they had taken steps “on the advisement of Reddit” for how they could keep their group open.

One administrator expressed that the ordeal was a “roller coaster of being hated”. The irony of the group’s relentless online hating of the Lott family and others seemed to pass unnoticed.

Law enforcement will now conduct a criminal investigation to determine whether the conduct of the Redditors who filed the false reports is prosecutable. False CPS reports are a felony in Florida and can result in a fine of up to $10,000 or up to 5 years in jail.

Original Story

April 2024: It was just a normal travel day for the Lotts when CPS called. After crisscrossing the US together as a family for three years, they had travel days down to a science.

JD and Britney are both veterans, having served overseas after being deployed to Iraq. They met while Britney served in the Air Force and JD served in the Army. They spent every day together for the rest of Britney’s deployment, talking and playing board games. Once they were back home they got married and settled down with their family in Lubbock, Texas.

The Lott’s quickly became busy after having multiple young children and launching a local family business. Wanting to spend more time together, they took on the massive task of gutting and renovating a school bus into an RV so their family could travel the U.S. Once they finished their bus renovations, they took off on an adventure around the country, homeschooling their children along the way and documenting their travels on Instagram.

They loved the time together and the opportunity to experience so many new places as a family. Their Instagram following quickly took off; but with a large following always comes haters. The negative comments ranged from criticism of the Lott’s having too many kids to the bus being too small to making fun of the family’s Christian faith and homeschooling. Most of the comments were kind and supportive and made up of people who genuinely enjoyed following the family’s travels. Other comments were downright hateful and the Lott’s learned to ignore these.

As a result of their road-tripping, the Lotts have formed friendships across the country. After they started documenting their family travels on Instagram, their online following skyrocketed. Their Instagram account American Family Road Trip has now passed half a million followers.

This past spring, the Lott family parked their bus, which they had transformed into a family RV, at a picturesque state park in Florida. They soaked in the Florida sun and enjoyed walks on the beach. While at the state park, some of their friends called to see if the Lotts would come to visit them in Georgia. The Lotts were excited to take a trip to visit their friends and began making preparations.

On April 29, they left the Florida state park campground where they had been staying. They checked into a hotel as a family, leaving their bus-turned-RV safely parked in storage. The Lotts planned to take their 15-passenger van on the trip to Georgia.

Over the past two years, a group of online haters had formed on Reddit, relentlessly tracking and berating the Lotts. This group, rooted in a subreddit dedicated to criticizing conservative Christian families, fixated on the Lotts’ lifestyle, faith, and homeschooling practices. The comments ranged from harsh critiques to outright hate, but JD and Britney Lott chose to ignore the negativity.

They focused instead on their family’s adventures and the support from their many genuine followers. Despite their resilience, this online harassment eventually escalated into something far more sinister that threatened to tear their family apart.

That night in the hotel, JD and Britney noticed some harsh comments with unsettling accusations on their Instagram account. The comments claimed that Baby Boone, their one-week-old baby, had “severe sunburn, was lethargic, and had jaundice,” and accused them of child neglect. With such a large online following, the Lotts had become accustomed to criticism of their lifestyle and Christian faith. They deleted the comment and continued their evening as usual, getting the kids ready for bed, praying together, and saying goodnight.

The next morning, April 30th, started like any other travel day: wake up, get breakfast, and get on the road. JD and Britney enjoyed the time with their family in the van, talking with each other while the kids ate snacks and played with Legos. Everything was normal until their cell phone rang at 9:18 am with a call from a Florida Child Protective Services Investigator.

Even after reading the occasionally vitriolic comments on social media, a CPS report was not on JD or Britney’s mind. While most parents don’t live in constant fear of a false CPS report, the reality is far more widespread than many people believe.

Research shows that of all children in the United States, more than 1 out of every 3 will experience a CPS investigation by the age of 18. A 2017 study put the number at 37.4% of all US children who would be investigated. Two 2021 studies found similar results; one looking at major metro areas across the US and the second one evaluating removals in California. All three studies found that, for black children, the average rate of investigation was more than 50%. In some areas, it was more than 62%.

As one study noted, “The data suggest that having a CPS investigation is ubiquitous for US children and that risks of later-stage CPS contact are also common for children from historically and/or economically marginalized populations.” In other words, CPS investigations are so common in America that it is now a standard childhood experience to be investigated by CPS. It is about as common as a child receiving a one-time school suspension.

But JD and Britney weren’t expecting to become a statistic when they first came across the online group that seemed to have an unhealthy fixation on their family.

A couple of years ago, the Lotts became aware of the Reddit group where their family was a common target for criticism and vitriol. FundieSnarkUncensored has a two-year history of targeting conservative Christian families, including the Lott family.

Members of this group persistently provide profane and negative commentary on the Lott family’s lifestyle, faith, and homeschooling. Additionally, they frequently claim that the Lott’s children are victims of child neglect. While distressing, the Lott’s know that online hate comes with having a large social media following.

On April 27, Britney posted a photo on her Instagram of newborn baby Boone. Soon after the post was made, a user left a comment on the post accusing JD and Britney of neglecting their infant son. Britney was only one week post-partum. While the accusations were disturbing and frustrating, she counted it as just one more hateful comment, decided to move past it, and clicked delete. Providentially, Britney screenshotted the comment before deleting it.

Around the same time the Instagram comment was posted, a storm was brewing on Reddit. The subreddit r/FundieSnarkUncensored has several rules, some of which were being ignored by its users. One rule, “Look But Don’t Touch,” permits members to discuss a target family’s online content without interacting. Another rule prohibits armchair diagnoses. Moderators occasionally remind overactive users to stay within these rules.

However, users in the group convinced themselves that baby Boone was being neglected, sharing photos that garnered hundreds of comments filled with false diagnoses and accusations. These users began brainstorming ways to report the Lotts to CPS, 911, or even the Coast Guard.

While threatening to call CPS was not unusual in this particular subreddit, this was the moment when some users chose to cross the Rubicon. Users identified the family’s physical location from photos and offered to share the location via DM so that they could each report the family to CPS.

The Reddit users congratulated each other on being “saints” for reporting the family, but safe behind their keyboards, none of them saw what happened next.

The Lotts had been visiting a state park in Florida, but they had already left to visit friends in Georgia when their lives were thrown into disarray.

At 9:18 am they received a phone call from a CPS caseworker who quoted verbatim from the Instagram comment Britney had seen earlier. The caseworker described the accusation as the basis of a CPS investigation against their family. The Florida Child Protective Investigator found their phone number from the campground where they had been staying just a couple of days before.

The investigator was at the campground to conduct a welfare check due to allegations on Instagram. JD and Britney explained how they had already left the campsite because they were traveling to see friends in Georgia. They also explained how they have a large social media following and frequently receive criticism from a group on Reddit. The investigator seemed understanding during the call, which ended without further action required. Despite their discomfort with the CPS investigation, the Lotts believed the situation was resolved.

The Lott’s continued on their road trip and a little while later they stopped for lunch. While getting lunch for his family, JD missed a call from a casework supervisor at Walton County DCF, named Eric* (*Eric is an alias). Thirty minutes later, Eric texted, threatening to issue a nationwide “Order to Take Into Custody” for all of the Lotts’ children if JD didn’t call back immediately.

In shock, JD and Britney immediately called Eric, who repeated the social media allegations and then insisted the children must be seen and inspected in person by the end of the day or he would execute the nationwide removal order. Reflecting on this second call, JD said, “Britney and I met in Iraq and have faced some very stressful and intense situations. However, receiving a call with threats to take our children away was a completely different level of stress.” 

JD and Britney were reeling from the shock of what they were hearing. Instantly, the day transformed into a blur of text messages, phone calls, and a ferocious blitz to protect their children against a fast-approaching deadline.

JD immediately reached out to the Family Freedom Project (FFP), a Texas-based parental rights organization they knew had years of experience helping families who were wrongly investigated by CPS. With only a few hours left in the day, there was little time to spare. The Family Freedom Project feverishly began searching for a local Florida attorney who was available to clear their entire work day and handle the emergency with no notice.

Meanwhile, JD and Britney sat down with their kids for a conversation that no parent ever wants to have: discussing what might happen if they were taken. They began calling family members asking them to prepare to fly out and take custody of the children if needed. The Lott’s wanted to establish a plan to minimize additional trauma for their children, who were already experiencing the fear of losing their parents.

After furiously calling through numerous trusted attorney networks, FFP located attorney Lynn Salvatore in northern Florida who was able to take on the last-minute emergency case. By this time, it was 3:17 pm and the clock was ticking down. CPS had given the family until the close of business to present the children for inspection or else face removal.

Now that the Lotts had the Family Freedom Project and a local attorney on their side, JD called back Eric from DCF to arrange a meeting. Following advice from their attorney, the Lotts arranged for the children to meet with medical professionals and a police officer at a nearby hospital. Eric planned to join by phone.

Upon arriving at the hospital, the police officer pulled up behind the Lott’s van with his lights flashing and quickly jumped out to see the kids, who stared in shock. The allegations in the reports and social media posts claimed JD and Britney were neglecting Boone. However, the supervisor made it clear that the officer needed to inspect all of the children.

The medical workers and the police officer met with each child and gave a professional determination of their well-being. They confirmed that the allegations in the negative Instagram comment were false. The staff said the kids were in perfect health.

The medical workers and police officer expressed shock at what the Lott family was going through. One of the nurses, who was pregnant herself, was visibly distressed that the case could have so quickly escalated to this point based on an anonymous comment on social media.

The police officer talked with the medical professionals and then reported to DCF that the claims on social media were inaccurate. After hours of ferociously racing the clock, the Lotts were released, the investigation was closed, and their children were finally safe.

As JD and Britney climbed back into their van, they felt a mix of relief and shock. They were relieved to have their family intact, but they were stunned that a single person had the authority to decide if their children should be taken from them based on an anonymous comment on social media.

Simply being loving parents hadn’t been enough to keep their children safe. This group on Reddit had nearly succeeded in having their children removed because they disagreed with JD and Britney’s lifestyle and Christian faith–and it had taken a team of people mounting a rapid, cross-state defense to keep them safe.

Despite the turmoil faced by the Lotts, Reddit users in FundieSnarkUncensored have continued their daily posting about the family. In the weeks that followed, discussions have persisted on the subreddit about reporting the family to CPS again. Users continued to allege that JD and Britney are neglecting and abusing their children, showing no sign of letting up in their relentless scrutiny and baseless accusations.

The group also frequently discusses calling CPS on other well-known Christian families whom they follow online. At this point, it is unclear whether any of those families have also been subjected to CPS investigations as a result of false allegations from FundieSnarkUncensored.

A common feature in stories of CPS reports for neglect is a “no harm, no foul” attitude that many people have toward making a report in the first place. Many people see calling CPS as the safe thing to do, but families on the receiving end say that far from being a neutral intervention, CPS investigations can upend a family completely and erode their trust in the system, even if the investigation is dismissed. A child who experiences even a temporary removal can carry lifelong trauma from the event.

Critics often decry modern-day CPS as a form of “surveillance state.” While one obviously cannot equate an agency tasked with protecting kids to any of history’s most repressive authoritarian regimes, the sheer scope of modern CPS surveillance is stunning, where more than a third of US children will experience a CPS investigation by age 18. Psychological markers of living in a “surveillance state” mindset are identifiable in American parents as well.

A 2018 study interviewed 83 low-income parents and found that more than half of them regularly withheld information from professionals like teachers, doctors, or government aid workers out of fear that they may be turned into CPS. Some families would intentionally forgo asking for the help they needed because the risk of an investigation was not worth it.

The point is underscored for many families when you realize that merely being black or Native American can double your risk of a CPS investigation. A California study found that being on public insurance rather than private insurance–a signal of the family’s income level–increased the risk of CPS involvement at every level of severity between 2 and 7 fold.

People who make threadbare reports to CPS often feel they’ve done something noble, but they have little line of sight into what their report means for the family on the receiving end.

The social media accusations from FundieSnarkUncensored sent the Lotts through a terrifying, harrowing ordeal where they were unsure at each moment whether they were about to lose their children. After a flurry of activity racing to protect their children before a deadline mere hours away, the Lotts and the team of people behind them at Family Freedom Project ultimately avoided the worst-case scenario: the removal of their children by CPS. But many families, even innocent ones, don’t have that level of support to call on.

JD and Britney say they want accountability in the system to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. One question they haven’t been able to shake: What happens to families who don’t have a team of people ready to step in and defend them on a moment’s notice?

There will always be bad actors and there will always be hateful people who think they know best how to raise other people’s children. According to JD and Britney, the real problem is that we have a system that can be so easily weaponized against families; one that is hard for innocent families to escape.

JD and Britney are residents of Texas, but the false accusations were made in Florida. In both Texas and Florida, making a false CPS report is a felony. It is punishable in Florida by a $10,000.00 fine and up to 5 years in prison.

In Texas, CPS reform has been a bi-partisan priority for the past 7 years.

Historically, once a child is removed by Texas CPS, only 35% of those children will ever return home. For those who do, it takes an average of 14.6 months for the child to reunite with their family.

Starting in 2017, the state began to take a serious bi-partisan look at whether it was doing some of those children more harm than good through overly hasty removals, especially in light of the multi-year litigation the state has been in over the safety conditions of its foster care system.

The Family Freedom Project, along with a coalition of other CPS reform organizations, has been at the forefront of the development and passage of many of these reforms.

After a litany of reforms to CPS in 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2023 all designed to target CPS interventions to only the most necessary cases, the state has seen stunning results. Child removals in the state have plummeted fifty percent. Child deaths from abuse and neglect have also gone down. Because fewer children are entering the system, the number of children waiting for adoption has also dramatically fallen.

Despite the broad scope of the reforms, nearly all passed with strong bipartisan support, and many of them on a nearly unanimous vote. Both sides of the political aisle in Texas recognize CPS is necessary, but also that unchecked CPS intervention can devastate families and communities of all races, all socioeconomic backgrounds, and all political affiliations.

Case in point: Many of the largest reforms that have passed were joint-authored in the Texas House by conservative lawmaker James Frank (R-Wichita Falls) and hyper-progressive lawmaker Gene Wu (D-Houston).

Reformers believe that more must still be done, but the Texas story is proof of concept for the idea that the state can protect children from abuse and neglect without the widespread surveillance and destruction of families that have been typical in many modern CPS systems.

JD and Britney recently released a video on their Instagram account where they gave a personal account of their story for the first time.

According to JD and Britney, the key point for people to understand is this: States must protect children from abuse and neglect, but surveilling and traumatizing millions upon millions of innocent families along the way is not the answer. States can and must do better.

Individuals who weaponize CPS against families with false reports should be held criminally accountable, but the system itself needs a dramatic overhaul.

For JD and Britney, they hope that officials in their home state of Texas will maintain their bi-partisan commitment to protecting children and that other states around the country will follow Texas’ example to do the same. The well-being of families, they say, depends on it.