Police Criticized for Violating the Privacy of a Women’s Shelter

Short on hope, mother and daughter landed in San Diego with a single suitcase and a decade of experiences to come to terms with.

Through therapy and support from social workers, Kathryn Parker and her 11-year-old daughter managed a tenuous grip on their lives during the 10 months they stayed at a friend’s condo in Point Loma and at a church-run safehouse for abused women and children.

Then, one night last month, San Diego police served a court order to return the daughter to New York, and opened a new chapter in the Parkers’ legal wrangle over custody rights and sexual abuse allegations. The way police handled the situation has also raised questions about the privacy of women’s shelters.

Parker had been convinced for years that her ex-husband was molesting their daughter. In December, frustrated by what she contends was court and law enforcement inaction, she defied custody orders and fled New York State with the girl.

The girl has been returned under police supervision to New York State, where she appeared Sept. 2 at a family court hearing in Goshen.

Kathryn Parker, 48, flew from San Diego to see her daughter at the hearing and was immediately arrested and charged with contempt of court for violating visitation guidelines awarded to the girl’s father.

Since last week, the child has been in foster care and denied access to parents, relatives and friends while the Orange County, N.Y., Department of Children’s Protective Services examines the family’s case.

Laszlo Gelencser, 52, an unemployed engineer who lives in Middletown, N.Y., has denied allegations of child molestation. He contended in court that the girl’s accusations were prompted by Kathryn Parker to deny him visitation rights.

A review hearing has been scheduled Oct. 2.

The Parkers’ situation mirrors several legal cases across the nation involving a parent who defies a court order she or he considers harmful to the child, and flees with the child into an secretive refuge of sympathetic friends, emergency shelters and safehouses.

The San Diego Police Department has been criticized for its handling of the case.

The staff at Julian’s Anchorage, the safehouse where Parker stayed since June, has accused the police of violating the privacy of women staying there. Safehouse workers said Thursday that officers worked with an attorney and private investigator hired by Gelencser to serve his daughter with the order to appear in New York.

According to Julian’s Anchorage workers, police interrogated Parker’s friends and neighbors, intimidating and threatening to arrest those who did not disclose Parker’s whereabouts.

“The beating on the doors. The threats. The police were using the same kind of tactics that these women are running from,” said the Rev. Patricia Moore, chaplain at Julian’s Anchorage.

“And perhaps most disturbing, they made known the address of our safehouse to private investigators who are part of a network of searching out women and children running from their spouses . . . . Julian’s Anchorage is no longer safe, and the Police Department is responsible.”

In response to the Aug. 28 incident, the San Diego City Commission on the Status of Women has called for an emergency family policy to protect children caught up in domestic disputes.

In a letter to the mayor dated Sept. 8, commission chairwoman Maria Velasquez cited the Parker situation as an example of “the abrupt manner in which children are taken away from their parents, sometimes in the middle of the night, without regard to the emotional trauma children experience.”

Velasquez requested that Police Department policy is developed to handle parental custody court orders.

The department is investigating the handling of the incident, said police spokesman Dave Cohen.

“We are very concerned about the allegations and are treating them as a formal citizen’s complaint,” Cohen said. “We are trying to determine exactly what took place that night, who was involved, and if they acted within the department guidelines.”