My ex called the cops on me for vaccinating our kids

And the cop actually “investigated” me

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

I saw the voicemail when I got home. My phone had been on silent since I had just gotten my four teens vaccinated against COVID at the health department. The message was from a police officer in a neighboring town following up with me on a “potential parenting plan dispute.” When I called the officer back, he explained that my ex-husband had contacted the police department claiming I was in violation of our parenting plan by vaccinating our kids. The officer was now investigating me.

Aside from traffic violations, I’ve never had any interactions with the police. I felt intimidated. I was scared. It was hard to act normal on the phone, because internally I was freaking out. I’m a regular person with a job, a mom with teenage kids, not someone who knows how to handle a police encounter. I thought, okay, this is obviously a misunderstanding. I just agreed to everything the officer asked me to provide to him to prove my innocence of a “crime” that I hadn’t actually committed and that wasn’t a crime anyway. But in the moment I thought, well, he has the power. I have no control over this. He can come over to my house anytime and what if he comes here when the kids are home and they get scared? What if the neighbors see and think we’re no longer safe people to interact with? What if I don’t comply with his demands and that creates more problems for my family?

So, I did what the officer asked. I sent him the parenting plan highlighting the section in question. I sent him the communications with time stamps showing that I was in compliance with the court-ordered plan.

It took a long time for me to calm down enough to think clearly. I spoke with my partner. I spoke with my lawyer. Logically none of this made sense.

There were several major problems with this situation:

1. I was not in violation of the parenting plan and provided the necessary evidence to the police officer on the same day. The police officer emailed my lawyer: “Based on the information that was provided to me by you and your client and the elements of the parenting plan, I do see there has been a violation of the parenting plan. Your client sent me a copy of the parenting plan where it states on page 13 a ‘violation…