Cyrus Anderson, 10-month-old baby of Marissa and Levi Anderson, was admitted to the hospital on March 1st, 2022 due to severe malnourishment. The infant was released on March 4th, 2022 after it gained enough weight to be released. It was imperative that this child continue to get care, because otherwise they may sustain injury or even death.
However, the parents either didn’t realize or care about the gravity of the situation, and skipped out on a mandatory medical check up. The excuse given was that Marissa “wasn’t feeling well”. Police ended up getting a warrant to search their home for the child to ensure its safety, but the parents were stopped coming home from a dinner party at a friend’s house with their abused baby in Garden City. Police believed this baby was in “imminent danger“, and so was removed from his parents’ custody and was brought to St. Luke’s hospital.
The parents refused to believe that they were endangering their child and believed that he was kidnapped. They ended up enlisting Ammon Bundy, their family friend and Idaho’s favorite terrorist, to sway public opinion. Ammon Bundy willingly admits that this child was sick enough to justify going to the hospital for an I.V.. Bundy then backtracks and claims the baby was healthy, and then states that even if he wasn’t healthy the government has no right to remove the child from a potentially fatally abusive situation. On top of everything else, Bundy has encouraged people to call 911 to complain in defense of this child abuse. The Ada County Sherriff’s Department ended up having to issue a statement which asks folks to stop this, because its preventing real emergencies from being able to be addressed.
Bundy used his sway to spin the story as the abused baby actually being kidnapped. Bundy went and protested at the St. Luke’s hospital the baby was receiving care at. In fact, Bundy made such a scene that he was arrested on March 12th, 2022 for trespassing at the hospital. However, since he’s Amon Bundy, he was released from jail just a couple hours later. Bundy organized a protest that same day, and recorded and posted a video on his youtube channel where the baby’s grandfather claimed that removing the abused and malnourished baby was on par with taking a child away because they had a fever or were Christian. The grandfather announced that he was going to protest there everyday until the baby was returned to his abusers.
The baby continued to struggle in the hospital due to the abuse that was inflicted. A foster family was found for the baby once he was healthy enough to be discharged. When Bundy got wind of this he was quick to inject as much conspiracy-theories as he could into the situation. He called this a “child-trafficking ring” and CPS is making money off of “kidnapping” this baby. Bundy organized another protest on March 15th, 2022. The hospital was worried that it could turn violent, so the hospital went into lockdown. Ambulances weren’t able to get the sick and injured to the care they so desperately needed.
Far-right wing folks have done an extraordinary job of trying to spin the narratives to even make child abuse seem admirable. See through their silver-tongued crocodile tears!
In Short
- A baby was abused to the point of needing to be admitted to the hospital.
- Baby was released from the hospital under the condition of follow up medical appointments.
- Those appointments weren’t kept, and so the baby was removed from the custody.
- Parents enlisted Ammon Bundy as their P.R.
- Bundy was arrested for protesting the removal of an abuse victim from their abuser
- Bundy organized a protest that was enough of a worry to put a hospital on lockdown