The father of two children who were found after going missing in Fort Lauderdale last week was arrested on Monday, police said.
Bradley Paul Stevenson, 36, is facing two charges of interference with the custody of a minor or incompetent person, Broward Jail records showed.
Bradley Paul Stevenson
The incident began Thursday when police issued a missing child alert for Stevenson’s children, ages 7 and 5, who had been last seen in the 1600 block of Southwest 22nd Avenue.
It was believed that they were with their father at the time, police said.
Around the same time they went missing, officers and SWAT members had responded to a home on Southwest 22nd Avenue after receiving a domestic call for service involving someone who barricaded themself in the home.
The missing children were later found safe.
According to Fort Lauderdale Police, officers later found Stevenson in a vehicle in the 2200 block of Davie Boulevard.
Officers then used a grappling device that is equipped on a cruiser to stop the vehicle in the area of Interstate 595 and Interstate 95.
When the vehicle was stopped, Stevenson was taken into custody and taken to the Broward Sheriff’s Office Main Jail.
Court records showed that a judge granted an emergency motion from the child’s mother, asking for full custody of the children just days before the incident.
In the motion, the mother argued that the kids’ health and wellbeing were being put in imminent danger by Stevenson and claimed that two weeks earlier, Stevenson was watching the children while allegedly “heavily intoxicated and not able to stand upright without swaying and stumbling” and he was “unconscious in the driver’s seat of his truck.”
Stevenson and his wife are currently going through a divorce.
He was released from jail on a $10,000 bond Tuesday afternoon.
The investigation still remains active.