I Call BS.
There is a federal law know as the good samaritan law which provides indemnity for persons offering help in these situations. There is no logical reason nor legal reason for the authorities not to accept the help of clearly qualified individuals. As a matter of fact, the mere fact that they turned down the help may actually put the department in legal jeopardy should have something awful happened to the children. What a shame that politics and small penis syndrome get in the way of people working together to try to achieve a positive result.