Ten hour siege, a SWAT team... and a TANK: How police dealt with mother who refused to give her child medication



Detroit mother Maryanne Godboldo refused to give her daughter an anti-psychotic drug

A mother was involved in a ten-hour stand-off with a police SWAT team after refusing to give her child some medication.



Maryanne Godboldo, from Detroit, was accused of medically neglecting her 13-year-old daughter Ariana by not administering her with an anti-psychotic drug.



Staff from the Child Protective Services, accompanied by police, turned up at Godboldo's home to take her child into state care.



A SWAT team then descended on the 56-year-old woman's house with a tank and automatic rifles after she was accused of firing a gun at police officers.



After a ten-hour stand-off, which resulted in the mother giving herself up, Ariana was taken into protective custody.



The girl had been home-schooled by her mother but wanted to start going to a regular school, which required her to take a number of immunisations, reports Prisonplanet.com.

The girl then suffered adverse reactions to these shots and her mother was told to put her on a prescribed pyschotropic drug.

'She began acting out of character, being irritated, having facial grimaces that have been associated with immunisations,' the child's aunt, Penny Godboldo, told the Detroit News.

The mother at first took the advice of doctors and gave Ariana the medication, Risperdal, but stopped after she said it was making her daughter's condition worse.



Risperdal is an anti-psychotic medication which works by changing the effects of chemicals in the brain.

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Police and the Child Protective Services turned up at Godboldo's home to take her child into state care, claiming the 13-year-old was being neglected

Godboldo now faces multiple criminal charges after a 10-hour stand-off with a police SWAT team

It is used to treat, among other things, schizophrenia, as well as the symptoms of bipolar disorder and autism.



'Child Protective Services was trying to force her child to take a dangerous medication, Risperdal, against her will,' said the Godboldo family lawyer.



Maryanne Godboldo is now facing criminal charges including firing a weapon in her house and resisting a police officer.

Her bail has been set at $500,000.



'We're hoping that Ariana is returned home, this whole matter is released, because we don't think that the mother has done anything at all,' attorney Wanda Evans told My FOX Detroit.

Ariana remains in protective custody, at the Hawthorne Center in Northville.

Officials have said they have not medicated the girl since she has been in their care.

