2 Kidnapers Tear Boy, 6, Away From Grandmother : Abduction: Woman injured in trying to save the child. Family hopes incident is related to an ongoing custody dispute.

Kidnapers snatched a 6-year-old boy from his grandmother in their front yard Monday morning and drove off, dragging the grandmother as she clung to the boy.

Police said they are investigating the family’s suspicion that the attack was related to an ongoing custody dispute.

Daniel James Lans and his grandmother, Janet Lans, were leaving their home in the 10400 block of Lorraine Lane for school about 8:15 a.m. when a man grabbed the child and forced him into a car, which was driven by another man, police said.

The grandmother, in her late 40s, tried to stop the men, who took her purse during the struggle, Cypress Police Lt. Phillip Satterfield said. She told police she tried to hang on to the car, and was dragged a short distance. She was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital.

Family members said they believe that the kidnaping may be part of a long-running custody dispute between Janet Lans, who has had legal custody of Daniel since he was 3 weeks old, and her daughter, the boy’s mother.

“We are hoping his mother was involved,” said John Landolfi, 32, Lans’ son and the boy’s uncle. “I am hoping this is not some black market ring or something where they want a certain-looking kid.”

Bruised and stiff from her injuries, Lans walked slowly as she returned to her home several hours later. Landolfi said she was too upset to discuss the kidnaping.

“Every bone in her body aches,” he said. “She insisted she wants to be home instead of in the hospital.”

Satterfield said police were trying to contact the boy’s parents. The motive “is up in the air, but we’re certainly looking into” the possibility that the kidnaping was part of a custody dispute, he said.

Police said the boy is under treatment for serious asthma and requires frequent medication.

The kidnapers were first seen by a neighbor who lives around the corner.

Landolfi, who acted as a family spokesman, said the neighbor called police and described the four-door, light blue Hyundai with paper license plates. She went to the curb and asked the men what they were doing there, Landolfi said, and they told her that they were waiting for a friend.

“I just saw them sitting in front of my house, and I was worried,” said the neighbor, who would only identify herself as Kerrie. “I confronted them.”

The boy’s uncle said the men apparently moved their car just down the street from Lans’ house. At one point, air was released from the right rear tire of Lans’ Ford Mustang parked in the driveway, he said.

Minutes later, as Lans and Daniel were getting into her car, one of the men ran up and called out the boy’s name, Landolfi said. As he pulled the boy to the waiting car, Lans held on to her grandson.

“They knew what they wanted,” Landolfi said. He added that his mother suspected that they then drugged the boy because she saw them struggling with him and heard one man yell, “Hurry. Give it to him, give it to him.”

Lans had never seen the men before, police said. One was described as about 5 feet 10, with shaggy blond hair and a medium build. The driver was described as about six feet, with light blond hair and a thin build. Both appeared in their 20s.

Satterfield said there have been no ransom demands.

“There’s not a whole lot to go on at this time,” he said.

For several years, Landolfi said, Lans had cared for her daughter’s three children but had legal custody only of Daniel. The others are a 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy. That arrangement worked, Landolfi said, until “her son called my mom ‘Mom,’ and from that point, all hell broke loose.”

About 1 1/2 years ago, Daniel’s mother, about 30, requested that the two older children, by a different father, be returned to her in Phoenix. She also began to seek custody of Daniel, Landolfi said.

On Monday evening, she was visiting her daughter at a Prescott, Ariz., school, the older son said.

“I don’t think she even knows” about the kidnaping, he said.

Landolfi said Daniel Lans has never lived with his mother and “does not even know” her.

He described Daniel as “pretty independent,” with hobbies that include video games and race cars.

But Landolfi said he felt “a pain through my stomach,” thinking about the boy’s welfare. Daniel’s probably “in a panic, total panic,” Landolfi said.

M.J. Beatty, principal of Vessels School in Cypress, said Daniel, who lives about two blocks from the school, is a first-grader there.

“He’s just a normal first-grade little boy” she said.

Daniel is about four feet tall and weighs 55 pounds. He was wearing a blue shirt, jeans, a multicolored sweater, a red jacket and white tennis shoes.

Police asked anyone with information on the case to call (714) 229-6600.

Times staff writers David Haldane and Eric Young contributed to this story.