It’s been about a month since Bianca Clayborne and Deonte Williams were separated from their five children following a traffic stop in rural Tennessee.

The Georgia family was pulled over by state highway patrol while traveling through Coffee County in February. It was during this stop, officers found a small amount of marijuana in the car and charged Williams with a misdemeanor for possession.

Their children — who range in age from 4-months to 7 years old — were then taken into custody by the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, the circumstances around which were first reported by the Tennessee Lookout last week.

The family and their lawyers attended a court hearing at the Coffee County Justice Center on Monday morning in hopes of being reunited.

But in closed proceedings, the juvenile court decided that the children would not be going home with their parents.

The family’s attorney, Courtney Teasley, held a press conference outside the brick building in Manchester, saying the children are safer with their parents than with DCS.

“Five children taken away while one of them was still breastfeeding,” Teasley said. “The father locked in a cage, having to make bond for a citable offense. Five children forced to then even be separated from one another and subject to the treatment of this abysmal system. This is torture.”

Paige Pfleger WPLN News

The Coffee County Justice Center.

Initially, the children were placed in separate foster homes. Now, they are together with a relative in the Nashville area.

Teasley was not able to share more specific details about the proceedings because DCS has accused her, and the family, of violating juvenile court confidentiality rules.

Alex Denis, a DCS spokesperson present at hearing, said the parents should not have spoken publicly about their children while they are in the state’s custody.

“When you talk about these juvenile cases, some of the details that have been released we believe were unlawfully released because those are protected — those types of details protect the children,” Denis said.

Denis said DCS case workers followed proper policies to remove the five children. She also said it is rare for the department to take custody of children who are traveling through the state.

Activist Theeda Murphy of No Exceptions Prison Collective said the department should not have intervened in this case.

“DCS has been keeping children in offices and in hallways, but has the nerve to come in and say these children are in danger right now?” Murphy said.

Murphy noted this action comes as a bill was being proposed at the state capitol to dissolve the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth — an independent watchdog group that monitors DCS.

“They silence anyone who has the nerve to call out what they’re doing,” Murphy says. “The state of Tennessee has no respect for Black families.”

The family’s attorney, Teasley, said that the next steps for the family will include a hair follicle test for the mother, and another court hearing for the father.