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Child Support Tyranny - $0.60 Left for Father Form His Weekly Paycheck
 
‘I understand his frustration’
 
 
Damion Hamilton
 
Damion Hamilton, 28, of St. Louis, says his last paycheck was 60 cents after his wages were garnisheed.
 
Damion Hamilton sits, waiting and fuming, in a room at the state Office of Child Support Enforcement. His legs bounce in his plastic chair. He's too upset to read any of the magazines lining a far wall. He burns with frustration over paying child support, the same kind of frustration that helped fuel a killing spree in St. Louis last week. In offices like this one, frustration is not unusual.

Hamilton is distraught over the child support he's been paying for his only child, a 4-year-old boy who shares his name. His wages are being garnisheed to the tune of $260 a month. That's a lot of money to a man who makes $6.25 an hour as a short-order cook. He said his last paycheck, after taking out child support, was just 60 cents.

Hamilton, who bristles at the term "deadbeat dad" and insists he is a good father, said the system is strangling him financially. He's here to argue that he's paid enough. So, he said, he feels a little of what a witness said drove Herbert L. Chalmers, who was reportedly enraged over having his wages garnisheed for child support, to kill four people before turning the gun on himself.

"I understood his frustration, but what he did was wrong," Hamilton, 28, said. "But just imagine you can't pay your house note, or your car note. It hurts. Hurts the heart. They look at you like, 'You're a man, you can take it.' But it hurts. I can't go on with my life."

Last week's spasm of violence hints at the highly charged world of child support cases, where fights over money simmer for years and occasionally explode. Most cases proceed without notice. But while Chalmers' violent reaction was unusual, the powerful emotions behind it - the rage, frustration and sense of helplessness - are common, say people who deal daily with family-law cases.
 
"When you couple financial frustration with the emotional baggage, you have a situation where, unfortunately, it can turn tragic," Dallas divorce attorney Jonathan Bates said.

A hot-button issue

Child support is especially fraught with pain. It hits the noncustodial parent, often a man, in the heart and the checkbook. Payments can extend for up to two decades as the child grows up. Each paycheck can feel like a reminder of that failed relationship. Rational thoughts about the duty to support a child are not factored in.

"If you talk to these men and ask them, 'Do you want your kids to sleep in the street?' they say, 'No, not at all.' But they're not thinking about that," Clayton divorce attorney Allan Zerman said. "It's a hot-button issue for a lot people."

The cost of child support appears to be what pushed Chalmers over the edge. In the months before last Tuesday's shootings, he learned he'd need to fork over even more from his paycheck at Finninger's Catering Service in St. Louis' West End. He reportedly felt he could not survive on the $200 he was taking home every two weeks. He told Finninger's co-owner Charlie Finninger that the garnishment was a mistake.

Chalmers fatally shot four people: Sylvia Haynes, mother of his children; co-workers Cleo Finninger and Christine Politte; and Carol D. Moore, whose relationship with Chalmers is unclear. Another employee, Patricia Meier, was shot and survived.

Across the country, child support cases have come to violent ends. In January, a University City man killed his girlfriend, their 7-year-old son and himself because he was worried about going to jail for failing to pay child support for his other children. A New York man upset about paying child support shot two of his ex-girlfriends before killing himself in October. Last February, a Texas man shot his ex-wife and a bystander in a rampage caused by a child support dispute.

And in Seattle, a man frustrated by the child-custody system stormed a federal courthouse last summer and was killed by police. Before his death, the man had staged solo marches and written e-mails protesting the child support system in Washington state.

A huge industry

Collecting child support has emerged as a huge industry. Over the past 30 years, states and the federal government have stepped up efforts to track down parents and seek reimbursement for federal assistance money. As a result, $21.9 billion in child support was taken in across the nation in 2004. Missouri collected $527 million in child support and Illinois pulled in more than $1 billion in fiscal year 2005.

To cut down on people job-hopping to avoid paying child support, federal law requires companies to immediately report all new hires to the state, so the names can be checked against child-custody rolls. Most states use a formula for calculating the amount of child support, though family-law judges have discretion to push the amount higher and lower.

The best way to collect child support is to take it directly from paychecks, experts say. Wage garnishments account for two-thirds of all collections in the United States. In Missouri alone, 135,000 new wage garnishment orders were signed in 2005.

"Some people find it a convenience. Some people find it uncomfortable, too," said Jim Carney, a Missouri child support field liaison. Garnisheeing wages sometimes puts companies in a difficult spot.

"It can feel like an invasion of privacy, involving an employer in a personal matter," said Frank Murphy, a divorce attorney with the St. Louis firm of Cordell & Cordell.

One payroll company, Midwest Accounting Service, includes a copy of the court order with the first paycheck. The line item on a pay stub reads simply "garnishment." Still, people call to complain.

"They get upset, and we just tell them we're following the law," office manager Julia Beardon said.

"It's not fair"

At the child support office in downtown St. Louis, Hamilton's wait is over. A caseworker opens the secured door. "Are you ready, Mr. Hamilton?" the caseworker asks. "Can you sign in for me? Can you step into Room 2?"

Hamilton disappears behind a door. Muffled voices pour from the room, getting louder and louder as Hamilton calls his son's mother on his cell phone and lets her join the conversation over speakerphone.

After 15 minutes, he comes out, phone to his ear, continuing to talk with his former girlfriend.

They are arguing over what happened to $1,300 he recently paid in child support.

The phone call ends. But it is not clear whether anything was resolved.

"This is not fair, not fair," Hamilton said, standing outside. "I live with my mom. I sleep on the floor. I don't have a car. I walked down here. It's not fair."

He puts the phone in his pocket and begins the walk home, certain he will have to return.

tfrankel@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8110

Last week's spasm of violence hints at the highly charged world of child support cases, where fights over money simmer for years and occasionally explode. Most cases proceed without notice. But while Chalmers' violent reaction was unusual, the powerful emotions behind it - the rage, frustration and sense of helplessness - are common, say people who deal daily with family-law cases.

"When you couple financial frustration with the emotional baggage, you have a situation where, unfortunately, it can turn tragic," Dallas divorce attorney Jonathan Bates said.

A hot-button issue

Child support is especially fraught with pain. It hits the noncustodial parent, often a man, in the heart and the checkbook. Payments can extend for up to two decades as the child grows up. Each paycheck can feel like a reminder of that failed relationship. Rational thoughts about the duty to support a child are not factored in.

"If you talk to these men and ask them, 'Do you want your kids to sleep in the street?' they say, 'No, not at all.' But they're not thinking about that," Clayton divorce attorney Allan Zerman said. "It's a hot-button issue for a lot people."

The cost of child support appears to be what pushed Chalmers over the edge. In the months before last Tuesday's shootings, he learned he'd need to fork over even more from his paycheck at Finninger's Catering Service in St. Louis' West End. He reportedly felt he could not survive on the $200 he was taking home every two weeks. He told Finninger's co-owner Charlie Finninger that the garnishment was a mistake.

Chalmers fatally shot four people: Sylvia Haynes, mother of his children; co-workers Cleo Finninger and Christine Politte; and Carol D. Moore, whose relationship with Chalmers is unclear. Another employee, Patricia Meier, was shot and survived.

Across the country, child support cases have come to violent ends. In January, a University City man killed his girlfriend, their 7-year-old son and himself because he was worried about going to jail for failing to pay child support for his other children. A New York man upset about paying child support shot two of his ex-girlfriends before killing himself in October. Last February, a Texas man shot his ex-wife and a bystander in a rampage caused by a child support dispute.

And in Seattle, a man frustrated by the child-custody system stormed a federal courthouse last summer and was killed by police. Before his death, the man had staged solo marches and written e-mails protesting the child support system in Washington state.

A huge industry

Collecting child support has emerged as a huge industry. Over the past 30 years, states and the federal government have stepped up efforts to track down parents and seek reimbursement for federal assistance money. As a result, $21.9 billion in child support was taken in across the nation in 2004. Missouri collected $527 million in child support and Illinois pulled in more than $1 billion in fiscal year 2005.

To cut down on people job-hopping to avoid paying child support, federal law requires companies to immediately report all new hires to the state, so the names can be checked against child-custody rolls. Most states use a formula for calculating the amount of child support, though family-law judges have discretion to push the amount higher and lower.

The best way to collect child support is to take it directly from paychecks, experts say. Wage garnishments account for two-thirds of all collections in the United States. In Missouri alone, 135,000 new wage garnishment orders were signed in 2005.

"Some people find it a convenience. Some people find it uncomfortable, too," said Jim Carney, a Missouri child support field liaison. Garnisheeing wages sometimes puts companies in a difficult spot.

"It can feel like an invasion of privacy, involving an employer in a personal matter," said Frank Murphy, a divorce attorney with the St. Louis firm of Cordell & Cordell.

One payroll company, Midwest Accounting Service, includes a copy of the court order with the first paycheck. The line item on a pay stub reads simply "garnishment." Still, people call to complain.

"They get upset, and we just tell them we're following the law," office manager Julia Beardon said.

"It's not fair"

At the child support office in downtown St. Louis, Hamilton's wait is over. A caseworker opens the secured door. "Are you ready, Mr. Hamilton?" the caseworker asks. "Can you sign in for me? Can you step into Room 2?"

Hamilton disappears behind a door. Muffled voices pour from the room, getting louder and louder as Hamilton calls his son's mother on his cell phone and lets her join the conversation over speakerphone.

After 15 minutes, he comes out, phone to his ear, continuing to talk with his former girlfriend.

They are arguing over what happened to $1,300 he recently paid in child support.

The phone call ends. But it is not clear whether anything was resolved.

"This is not fair, not fair," Hamilton said, standing outside. "I live with my mom. I sleep on the floor. I don't have a car. I walked down here. It's not fair."

He puts the phone in his pocket and begins the walk home, certain he will have to return.

tfrankel@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8110