This week’s episode of Teen Mom 2 upset viewers more than usualwhen Jenelle Evans‘ husband David Eason was caught yelling at his kids — and possibly abusing Jenelle’s son Kaiser off-camera. Fans quickly took to Twitter to call out producers for not stepping in or saying anything to stop the seemingly inappropriate behavior. “If David kills Jenelle & all of the kids MTV should be held accountable. They should’ve intervened a long time ago. Those kids safety should be priority one,” one concerned viewered tweeted at the time. Another added, “I don’t understand how @MTV producers watch the abuse and do NOTHING to help the kid when David does this crap!”

Well, thanks to The Ashley’s Reality Roundup, we now know how producers are trained to handle these sticky situations — and despite what fans think, they do step in if there is suspected abuse or illegal activity. “We are required to report anything we see to the higher-ups [producers] who will tell us what to do and handle it from there,” the source said. “This would include anything we see that is illegal happening — drug use, for instance, or assault, child abuse, etc.” A separate insider also revealed that producers have reported members of the show’s cast in the past when the kids are deemed to be in danger.

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“We’ve called the police on cast members over the years, and let the cops handle the situation,” the second source explained. “We have also called CPS on cast members plenty of times when we see things in regard to the children that don’t seem right. Viewers don’t see everything. They would probably never know that’s happening behind the scenes. The cast member may not even know it was us, to be honest.”

The sources did agree, however, that viewers have to understand that their job is to capture the reality of the families on the show — and while there is always a security guard on set to step in if necessary, producers are advised against confronting the cast for their safety. “I think fans sometimes have unrealistic expectations for [the film crew and producers],” a crew member added. “Just because we are present for whatever is happening, we have no legal authority to do anything in terms of taking the kids away or having the parent arrested. We have no more authority to do anything legally than someone passing by the scene on the street and witnessing it.”

So, what about that infamous scene of Ryan Edwardsfalling asleep behind the wheel? According to The Ashley, no producer was in the car at the time of the incident to help. “That footage (and almost all car footage) is captured on Go-Pro cameras installed on the dashboard,” the source said. “We do not have a live feed to watch the cast in their car, despite what some viewers think. We do not have live eyes on them the whole time we’re filming them.” We would also like to point out the alleged abuse incident involving David also took place in a car.

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