June: Alabama removes toddler from Michigan family found with marijuana

Alabama police stop a family traveling through from Michigan, where cannabis is legal, and steal their child.

They are still fighting to get their child back, and don't know if they ever will.

The war on drugs is a war on people.

Crime

Alabama removes toddler from Michigan family found with marijuana

Updated: Jun. 30, 2021, 7:12 a.m. | Published: Jun. 29, 2021, 7:00 a.m.

By Amy Yurkanin | ayurkanin@al.com

Erika Prock left Michigan at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, March 10, with a change of clothes and a set of pajamas for her and her son.

She drove all night while the 18-month-old slept in the car seat and then picked up her husband at her in-laws’ home in Hamilton, along the Mississippi border in north Alabama. After a two-hour visit, they started back toward Hillsdale, Mich., with plans to stop in Nashville for sleep.

The family only made it as far as Moulton, where someone reported a disturbance as they stopped at Jack’s for lunch. When police responded, Prock’s husband was smoking a cigarette outside the car. An officer smelled marijuana on his breath.

Todd Prock told police he had marijuana in the trunk of the car. Then they arrested both adults and placed the child in foster care – trapping the family inside a nightmare for possessing a substance that’s legal in their home state.

“If we could have taken our situation and transported it to Michigan, we would have been on our way,” Erika Prock said. “None of this would have happened. Nothing. Like absolutely nothing.”

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