Gabriel Allred's mother backs foster parents

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The biological mother of a 2-year-old at the center of a controversial custody ruling says she wants her son to stay with his foster family in Oregon.
     
The state has ordered Gabriel Allred be sent to Mexico to live with his grandmother. The foster parents, Steve and Angela Brandt, of Toledo, are devastated by the state's ruling.
     
Gabriel's biological mother, Lindsey Allred, has been convicted on drug charges and has been on the lam from police soon after her son was born.
     
Gabriel has lived with the Brandts since he was four months old in the small coastal town of Toledo, where Steve Brandt is a Lincoln County sheriff's deputy.

Allred communicated with KATU News via text message saying she supports the Brandt family.  She also spoke to another Portland television station by phone, saying she does not understand why the state wants to take her son from the only family he knows.

The boy's biological father is a convicted child rapist and has never met Gabriel. He has also said the boy belongs with his current foster parents.
     
The Brandts set up a defense fund for Gabriel. Donations can be made at Washington Mutual banks.
     
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)