Are the police required to enforce a court ordered parenting time?

LOVE the details in the details! (Sorry, probably not appropriate!)

What’s SOL? I imagine that the police may not be required to enforce it, but that it gives your son better grounding at the next trip to court.

Thanks @harple! SOL= Shit Out of Luck.

Yeah, he’s gaining more and more leverage for his side because…well, you know why. Yesterday, before he went to get the baby, he got a PFA on her. In the past week she’s sent over 500 text and made 500 phone calls to him, all of which go unanswered. He’s going to get those records printed off of his phone now. I have plenty of records of my own, of ranting texts she’s sent me.

I don’t understand though, why the police wouldn’t be required to enforce it.

Do you remember the recent Susan Powell case? That is where she went missing and had 2 children that the father had custody of, but lost custody to the mothers parents. He got supervised custody and when the social worker brought the children over, he grabed them locked the social worker out and killed the kids and himself. I think the courts expect the social workers to take care of this kind of thing, but clearly they are not qualified.
Since you say the woman is a nut job, this is really a serious case. I would think that he would have to go through his lawyer to appeal to the courts.
Good luck.
This kind of thing drives me nuts. No one wants to get involved on behalf of the children until it’s too late.

Actually, the judge that gave the visitation rights, has court officers that do most of the enforcing of his orders. The police will normally only come, if violence breaks out.

Most of this is all civil and handled that way. If one person assaults the other, then the police are called, since this is a criminal act.

Hope this helps. The difference is civil and criminal.

@chyna thanks. :(.

@john65pennington I was hoping you’d chime in. So the answer is no, they aren’t required to enforce it? So who are the court officers and where do we find them?

Look on your court orders for the judges name and contact his office and tell him what you have told us.

Visitations rights can be a sticky and tricky situation. She can be arrested for violation of a court order, but the court officers would make that decision and not the police.

I had this issue with my ex a couple times. I called the police while at her house, reporting her as keeping the kids when they should be transferred. It was considered a possible domestic violence case, so they came right away. The woman sheriff convinced my ex to let me take them.

But the sheriff also advised me to get a more clear order from the court with specific days and times on it, as it was not absolutely clear who had the kids when. She told me that if my wife had argued with her, that she could not have enforced it because the order was ambiguous.

So have your son get detailed clear orders on when and how the kids are transferred (i.e., “every Wednesday” or “first and third Saturday”, “receiving parent picks up”). And to call the police/sheriff from her house instead of going to the department.

@Dutchess_III Your best bet is to go back to court and tell the judge.

Like @john65pennington said it is considered a civil dispute and as such the police usually won’t intervene without the judge’s orders. Usually in cases like yours the judge directs the Dept. of Social Services to monitor compliance, at least that is the way it works here.

I recommend you have your son document everything. He should keep a calendar of his visits. On the calendar he should write down anything and everything that takes place.

My mother had a lot of assistance from a judge once she put all of her documentation into a letter sent directly to the judge.

If the mother is a nutcase, she will most likely not even think of documenting anything. She will also most likely have no good excuses for her manipulation if the judge questions her. ;)

If the Orders are from Family Court, then the child most likely has a law guardian (assigned and paid for by the Court, a law guardian is like a lawyer for the child, and should be totally objective), and the case might be handled by Social Services, i.e. Child Protective or something like that. There is probably a court date scheduled again, as these things are usually ongoing. The next court date is the opportunity for all to tell their sides. He should document everything and give to his lawyer prior to next court date. This is not a police matter.

Just FYI, also, I used to be a CPS worker so there’s where my knowledge of these matters comes from.

@jca In California, Family Court handles regular child custody when the parents live apart. Child and Family Services is not brought in unless there is an endangerment charge and CFS is requesting guardianship or oversight of the child. With my custody dispute, CFS had multiple referrals from people on my ex, but never having found any reason to interfere, they never even filed anything with the court.

@zenvelo: OK. Regardless, it is not a police issue.

@zenvelo Thanks…my son is a lot like his mother. VERY meticulous. The papers specify exactly what days and what times the transfer is to be made.
There should be some action taken on the contempt grounds on Monday.

Until then, the police ARE working enthusiastically with him to help him set up a stalking and harassment case to take to the DA. This morning we copied over 160 texts into Word that she has sent in the last two weeks. His attorney told me she wasn’t sure how admissible they are, but my son can testify, under oath, that they are true and correct. It’s like a testimony of someone telling you something. Plus he’ll still have them on his phone. The written copy is just for others to easily see for himself.

Sprint is in the process of printing and mailing a list of his call log in the last two weeks. Over 500 calls, the vast majority of them “ignored.” But she’d just call back in seconds.

Should have all we need in a month.

I’ll tell you who my heart is breaking for…she has two little boys as well. The poor, poor things. I was with my son the last time he picked the baby up (when he goes by himself she tries to stop him from leaving by standing in front of the truck, not letting him close the door, etc.) and the boys just stood there looking at him, aching for him to hold them…. :( They’re just 2 and 4. :( (After that though, she sent a text to me, and my son telling me if I ever came to her house again she’d call the police. ! Lol!)

My son’s name showed up in the police report today…as the victim of harassing phone calls. Heh. She did an about face almost right away and keeps asking him to come get the baby, but it’s just a ploy to get him in the house so she can stop him from leaving, and try to push him so far that he pushes her away or something so she can call the police on him for “assault.” She did it once before. The DA dropped the charges the next day, though, probably because of how the police report read. She was screaming and cussing at them, at the top of her lungs, to “Arrest the f——er!” while my son remained very calm. He told them that she had hit him and was trying to yank the baby out of his arms.

Her being a nut case is going to be VERY here and there pretty damn soon.