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PROUD PARENTS: IN THE NEWS
Above is the scene where 38 year old Rachelle Grimmer attempted to murder her children before killing herself – upset about not being eligible for food stamps, Rachelle brought her two children in to the office and demanded a new case worker. Shortly after entering a private room she pulled out her gun and took hostages. After a lengthy stand off Rachelle let the employee go, not long after three shots rang out from the building. Rachelle shot her young children, a 10 year old boy and a 12 year old girl who are now in very critical condition.
Courtesy of HuffingtonPost.com
SAN ANTONIO — A Texas woman who for months was unable to qualify for food stamps pulled a gun in a state welfare office and staged a seven-hour standoff with police that ended with her shooting her two children before killing herself, officials said Tuesday.
The children, a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, remained in critical condition Tuesday. The shooting took place at a Texas Department of Health and Human Services building in Laredo, where police said about 25 people were inside at the time.
Authorities identified the mother as Rachelle Grimmer, 38, and children Ramie and Timothy. Laredo police investigator Joe Baeza said Grimmer had recently moved to the border city from Zanesville, Ohio, about 30 miles east of Columbus.
Grimmer first applied for food stamps in July but was denied because she didn’t turn in enough information, Texas Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.
Goodman didn’t know what Grimmer specifically failed to provide. In addition to completing an 18-page application, families seeking state benefits also must provide documents proving their information, such as proof of employment and residency.
“We were still waiting, and if we had that, I don’t know if she would still qualify or not,” Goodman said.
Goodman said Grimmer’s last contact with the agency appeared to be a phone call in mid-November. When the family entered the Laredo office on Monday shortly before 5 p.m., Goodman said Grimmer asked to speak to a new caseworker, and not the one whom she worked with previously.
Shortly thereafter, Goodman said, Grimmer was taken to a private room to discuss her case. She said it was there the mother revealed a gun and the standoff began.
Police negotiators stayed on the phone with Grimmer throughout the evening, but she kept hanging up, Baeza said. She allegedly told negotiators about a litany of complaints against state and federal government agencies.
Despite those complaints, Baeza said it wasn’t clear what specifically triggered the standoff.
“This wasn’t like a knee-jerk reaction,” said Baeza, adding that Grimmer felt she was owed restitution of some sort.
Grimmer let a supervisor go unharmed around 7:45, but stayed inside the office with her children. After hanging up the phone around 11:45, police heard three shots, and a SWAT team entered the building. Inside, they found Grimmer’s body and her two wounded children.
The children were “very critical” and unconscious when taken from the scene, Baeza said.
Multiple family members in Ohio and Missouri did not immediately return phone messages Tuesday. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said the agency had no information on Grimmer.
A YouTube channel the family appeared to have created in 2009 includes a profile that reads, “We are Shell, Ramie and Tim. Mom, daughter 10 and son 8. We like turtles, horses, and being outside. The kids have two turtles, an alligator snapper and a red eared slider. We work on naturalizing them and try to give them the most natural setting possible.”
There are no videos uploaded. Tagged as favorites are an eclectic mix of nearly two dozen videos, ranging from a solar panel installation to a live clip of the band of AC/DC. The “Hometown” category reads: “We don’t have one.”
Goodman credited an office supervisor, a 24-year veteran of the agency, for ensuring the release of the other employees.
“He had told her he would try to help her, and that if she would let everyone else leave, he would talk to her,” Goodman said.
Goodman didn’t know whether Grimmer had a job, or whether her children were covered under Medicaid or the state children’s health insurance program. The family had no history with the Texas Department of Child Protective Services.
The family’s move from Ohio may have complicated Grimmer’s application if the family had no Texas records the agency could check electronically, Goodman said. Grimmer also would have been denied benefits if she was receiving welfare assistance.
Grimmer also appeared to fall out of touch during her pursuit of food stamps. The mother originally applied July 7, but Goodman said Grimmer missed her first interview and didn’t call back and reschedule for a few weeks. Her case was closed Aug. 8 for lack of a full application, Goodman said.
How much food stamp money a family receives depends on their income level. The average family on food stamps in Texas receives $294 a month.
Three months later, Grimmer called the agency’s ombudsman Nov. 16 and requested a review of how her rejected case was handled. Goodman said the agency found that caseworkers acted appropriately after looking over Grimmer’s file, and a supervisor called Grimmer’s cell phone last Thursday to tell her the outcome. No one answered and the phone’s voicemail box was full, Goodman said.
“The indications she had she was dealing with a lot of issues,” Goodman said.
State welfare offices have come under scrutiny in the past for being overburdened, but Goodman said the agency has made significant strides in the past three years. She said wait times are shorter, and that Grimmer was scheduled for her initial interview just one day after applying. Grimmer didn’t make the appointment, she said.
Goodman said it’s not unusual for caseworkers to confront angry or confused benefit-seekers, but that it’s very rare for a situation to escalate to violence.
26 Comments to PROUD PARENTS: IN THE NEWS
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Ramie Grimmer succumbed to her injury in a San Antonio hospital on Wednesday. Her brother Timothy Grimmer is still in critical condition, according to MSNBC.
I wonder who will take care of the kids if they recover.
I’m not standing up for this woman, cause she was way way wrong and I hope she is burning in hell for doing that to her poor kids. I think the state welfare office is trying to cover their asses. When I was in High school,my dad got laid off and we had no income at all. We applied for food stamps and they gave us $14 a month. while a chick I know that had a job and was using her food stamps to trade drugs got $300a month. -_- So I’m pretty sure the welfare office is covering their asses on this one.
Sadly, both of the children have passed away as of December 8, 2011.
Just to update – both children have now passed on.
Maybe she didn’t have enough kids. We have a welfare/food stamp queen back home with more than a dozen kids, unmarried, lives in the projects, drives the nicest car owned in that small town, kids wear the best clothes, Jordans and all. Some of it MAY be paid for in child support but I doubt it because my mom only got less than 50 a month for 2 kids. This woman was living the life of luxury and judging from her location was probably selling crack too. So if you have a busload of kids, pretty much everything is free. The less kids you have, the less likely you’ll get any assistance.
I live in Texas, with one kid and trust me on an income of barely minimum wage, I do not qualify for anything. Texas caters to the women with many, many kids. They actually told me to call off work one day to lower my pay for that period and then submit those paychecks with the lower income. Basically telling me how to defraud the system. My conscience could not handle ever lieing like that, so I declined and pulled my application out. I took an extra job online and now am squeaking by. But as far as them caring if you eat, they don’t really. I can understand her being frustrated, but logically it meant she should have gotten a job or two. Do what you have to so the children can eat, not shoot them.
And just FYI the 12 year old daughter has passed away since this. The son is in critical care still.
God bless the babies. He will deal with the mother.
The daughter actually passed away on Thursday & the son is still in critical condition. Thought this was going to be an update…
my question is how the hell did she get a gun in there in the first place? i am in Ny and our “human services” office makes every person walk through a metal detector and if they can’t do that or they beep we get the wand probe.. and the purses wallets etc get x rayed.. you can’t even go in there with a box cutter! i assumed all government offices in every state had set ups like this. guess i was wrong
anyways what she did was just insane! I understand people needing financial help and i know for a fact that dealing with the bureaucratic bull-plop can be frustrating ( and the faceless voices behind those forms and applications and phone calls are usually less than helpful and sometimes outright nasty) . but the fact that she brought the gun AND her kids with her makes this seem not like a snapping point but a premeditated situation even if she got a reasonable answer about why she was denied or a solution to help her re-apply i don’t think it would have mattered, i think she went down that day with the idea of offing herself and the kiddos no matter what the outcome.. there was no reason for this whatsoever and those kids did not need to suffer like this. I wish so much that i believed in hell so i could picture this piece of vermin down there burning on a spit like a roast pig… but all i can hope for is that the remaining child pulls through and can get past this dreadful incident to become an upstanding citizen and live a full and happy life.
I know the system can be very dishardening but killing your babies isn’t the answer.
The boy died, too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/second-child-shot-by-mother-in-texas-welfare-office-her-10-year-old-son-dies/2011/12/08/gIQAhOYngO_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop
if you are living in the Ghetto you are not living in the lap of luxury.
Two kids murdered by their mother – who committed suicide. Why is this even on this site? Not funny. Not remotely.
Stress makes you do stupid things. She most likely had a job that only payed the bills and left barely any money for food and probably been looking for a 2nd job but had no luck. Just sayin’
This site isn’t always funny… have you read any of the “In the news”? It’s always actual news, which isn’t always nice.
This is a failure on both sides. I’ve been in her place but couldn’t EVER even think of killing my kid. I hope they investigate further and bring it all into the light.
She wasn’t an uneducated, illegal immigrant poppping out a half-dozen anchor babies one after the other, every nine months. Of course she didn’t qualify.
God help the USA.
She must have been way beyond desperate to shoot her own children. I think there’s a lot more going on here than we are hearing about. She has my full sympathy. It wasn’t right, but when you’re starving hungry, it can drive you round the bend. Poor lady, poor children.
no here we dnt have metal detectors everywhere. I live bout 5 hrs frm the border and 1 hr frm dallas and our government departments dont have nothin like that… Not even the court houses… And it is hard to get help here.. And some ppl lie their asses off to get help and refuse to work… And yes there are ppl who live in the ghetto aka subsidized housing and get walefare and tanf and food stamps and medicaid and drive cadilacs and wear jordans. Im 25 and white with a severe medical condition in which i can not work and i dont qualify for disability and have to live wit my parents wit my 3yr old and refuse to get tanf cuz my ex would get rights to my son and fought for 3 yrs for medicaid and food stamps… And still do every 6 months on renewal! And im sure this woman had problems and not just with the state but damn she could have chosen a diff way… I kno you dnt want your kids to go hungry or have to be put in foster care but damn she is gonna suffer for an eternity in hell.
i am a single mom that pays all my bills myself dont get any help or child support i have one child and make alittle above mim. wage and they tell me they cant help me as im sitting ther in the office watching chics with their nails donr their kids wearing name brand clothes and cars nicer then mine but have no job and getting all their bills paid as im working my ass off at least 50-60 hrs a week to clothe and feed me and my daughter while my tax dollars are helping those kind of ppl and the ones who are not even citizens of this country i can understand her fruastrations and they probly made her feel like a peice of shit like they would me for app. for that help but i would never even think of harming myself or my child no matter how bad times get u never go that way
From what I have observed of social services, only those who work the system get anything from it. Those in real need get little if not nothing. I make no excuses for this woman. She was blessed with kids, and if she didn’t want them, there is plenty of people who would love to have children in their homes! May the children finally find peace.
D:
They deserved better!
I live in Ohio, I have 3 kids and work a full time job ( i make approx 25k a year) and I receive benefits. You don’t have to have a dozen kids to get them, and you don’t have to be jobless to get them, there are limits though.
Tea, really she shot and killed both her children. She had enough money for a gun ! Why would you spend money on a gun if you needed food ? If you have a gun a need food, sell it for money to buy food. No matter how bad things are or how some state agency treats you, there are always options. Go to a church or food pantry or a hospital.
This woman was ether mentally ill or strung out on drugs or both.
@Bill I tried to send you a message via email but I got the “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently” error. It seems you wrote your email wrong. Would you please contact me?
She needed food stamps but yet the 12yr old has a smartphone ?