My friend and her boy friend broke up. They have a young child together who is less than one. She lives in Florida and her boy friends family lives in Nebraska. They verbally agreed to see the child three months at a time until the child is of school age. She let her ex take their daughter to Nebraska which was almost four months ago. He is not on the child's birth certificate and refuses to bring the little girl back to the mother. The mother called the police in the town the father lives in and they said they cannot help because it is a civil matter. What can she do to get her daughter back?

My friend and her boy friend broke up. They have a young child together who is less than one. She lives in Florida and her boy friends family lives in Nebraska. They verbally agreed to see the child three months at a time until the child is of school age. She let her ex take their daughter to Nebraska which was almost four months ago. He is not on the child's birth certificate and refuses to bring the little girl back to the mother. The mother called the police in the town the father lives in and they said they cannot help because it is a civil matter. What can she do to get her daughter back?

Technically, the police are right. This is a civil matter and they're certainly not going to get involved with an inter-state custody battle.

Your friend needs to get on a plane to Nebraska, show up on his doorstep with the police and the birth certificate with only her name on it. Assuming he never took a DNA test and/or signed a paternity acknowledgment, he would be legally considered a stranger to the child and has no rights.

The police will not remove the child and send her across country just because your friend is telling them that her daughter should be in Florida.