A new Duggar investigation launched by the Arkansas Department of Human Services led to a 911 call recently when the family refused to cooperate.
A representative from the Washington County DHS contacted police May 27 around 11 a.m. requesting assistance from law enforcement after the Duggars refused to let the
agent see the minor that was a cause for concern, InTouch Weekly reported.
InTouch learned via a Freedom for Information Act request that the DHS employee told the 911 operator, “We have an investigation, and I guess they’re not being cooperative. We have to see the child to make sure the child is all right. So we just need police assistance.”
DHS records are unavailable to the public by law, which means the original cause for the visit is unknown.
“All child maltreatment investigations in Arkansas are confidential by law,” DHS director of communications Amy Webb told the celebrity gossip magazine.
The visit was likely fallout from the bombshell revelation that Josh Duggar, the eldest of the family's 19 children, fondled four of his little sisters and a babysitter as they slept in 2002 and 2003 when he was 14 years old. His family sent him to a
Christian counseling program afterwards, according to the New York Daily News.
After completion of the program, dad Jim Bob Duggar reported the incidents to a state trooper who reportedly told the family patriarch that Josh, who is now 27 and expecting a fourth child with his wife, would not receive further punishment because he went to therapy, the Daily New noted. The statute of limitations has since expired.
The first Duggar police investigation occurred in 2006 after a friend of the family found a letter from 2003 describing the events, the Daily News reported. The friend then contacted the state’s abuse hotline.
In the midst of the case, the Duggars proved to be
uncooperative, according to The Huffington Post, which noted that Jim Bob reportedly refused to bring then-18-year-old Josh to a police interview.
DHS became involved in the investigation in 2007, according to InTouch.
Since the news of the investigation broke, the Duggars’ TLC reality television show “19 Kids & Counting” has been pulled from the schedule.