Formerly homeless YouTuber Jeremiah Payne released an emergency video on Friday in response to a notice he received from Clarksville Child Protective Services assigning his case to a new case worker and renewing the request for a home visit and interview with his seven-year-old daughter outside of the presence of her parents.
Payne held back tears as he said that he would not allow Clarksville to take his daughter from him and his wife Samantha. He dramatically asserted that any attempt to do so would be “over his dead body” and stated that authorities would have to physically remove his corpse as he would do anything to keep his daughter in his home.
The letter came two weeks after the Payne family were approached by a representative of Clarksville CPS as they were protesting on a busy street corner in Clarksville. Payne’s daughter is home schooled and accompanies her parents to their near daily protests of police outside of various businesses in the Clarksville area.
Payne identified the worker as Karissa Cunningham and said that Cunningham investigated a tip that Payne’s daughter was seen on the street corner with her parents during an excessively hot day in the area.
Cunningham, appearing in Payne’s video, said that she was on the verge of closing the case as she could not locate Payne’s family. When she found Payne’s family, she expressed disappointment as she thought the reports she received could not be verified.
Payne’s version of that story differed, as he said that Cunningham would have dropped the case but became enraged that Payne was recording her without permission. He would later accuse Cunningham of being a sex trafficker who was out to take his daughter and released her contact information, demanding his fans to brigade the CPS office on his behalf.
Because of Payne’s actions, a new case worker was assigned to manage that complaint. That worker reiterated the requirement for a home visit and interview of Payne’s daughter outside of the presence of her parents.
Payne stated that he would not allow the interview and would be recording the worker at all times as he felt the worker would lie about his daughter’s answers and use it as a cause to remove the child from his home.
The YouTuber would later blame a Clarksville police officer identified only as “Doolittle” as the source of the complaints to Clarksville CPS against his family. No evidence was provided to back his accusations.
It’s unclear what Payne fears about the home visit. Payne has previously featured videos of his home and shown that he and his wife provide a stable environment for their child. In those videos, the child has her own room, internet access and seems well cared for despite spending most of her day accompanying her parents to protests.
Payne ended the video by begging his fans to make the video “go viral” and reminding them that his channel was demonetized so any financial support should be sent directly to his PayPal account.
His video has been viewed 484 times as of press time.
