Following the removal of her children during a traffic check in Manchester last year, a Georgia mother has filed a lawsuit in Tennessee.
The complaint names troopers of the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP), workers of the Department of Children’s Services (DCS), and the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department.
On their way to a funeral in Chicago in February 2023, Deonte Williams, Bianca Clayborne, and their five children were traveling through Middle Tennessee by car.
THP troopers on I-24 stopped them because they had tinted their windows and were traveling in the left lane without passing. That’s when the troopers claim to have found a pistol in Clayborne’s purse along with five grams of marijuana.
THP did not intend to arrest Clayborne because he intended to leave the children with her, according to a warrant from the first traffic stop that FOX 17 News was able to obtain. However, troopers detained Williams because he had a criminal record.
According to the lawsuit, the family was taken to the Coffee County Jail by THP troopers in a police caravan, where they were given over to DCS.
The lawsuit claims that after the family was questioned, DCS and local police “literally ripped the children from Clayborne’s arms,” placed them in foster care, and delayed returning the children to Clayborne for fifty-five days.
“Clayborne and the children bring this lawsuit to vindicate their rights against the people that harmed them, though the full extent of the harm to their family may never be undone,” the lawsuit stated.
According to the lawyer, the matter should be scheduled for trial in around three months.
