Custody & Kidnapping

In many states, the police would not get involved with a situation where one parent doesn’t want the other to take the child out of the home unless there is a protection order or another court order that is keeping the parent away from the child. Or the police may get involved if a specific crime is being committed – for example, if a parent is intoxicated and is trying to put a child in the car and would therefore be committing a crime by driving drunk with a child. Generally, once a father’s paternity is established, the parents may be considered to have equal rights to a child and so the police often will not get involved in disputes about who can have the child at a specific moment in time. However, I am not sure how the police in your specific county would respond to a call by one parent who is trying to stop another parent from taking a child out of the home. Perhaps a lawyer can advise you on this – or it may even be possible to call the police anonymously to find out what they might do in this sort of situation if it were to happen in the future.