Father Turns in ‘Missing’ 2-Year-Old : Custody: Buena Park police say girl is in county facility pending review.

A 2-year-old girl was taken unharmed to the city’s police station Sunday, a day after her father reportedly abducted her during a struggle at a baby-sitter’s apartment, police said.

The girl, Desire Stine, was placed in the Orangewood Children’s Home while county social services officials assessed the case and met with her parents, said police Sgt. Robert R. Chaney Jr.

Investigators, who on Saturday feared Desire had been kidnaped, said Sunday that they have no immediate plans to arrest her father, Michael Ray Stine, a 35-year-old Buena Park resident.

Desire was reported abducted Saturday afternoon after Stine allegedly burst into a baby-sitter’s apartment and demanded his daughter, police said. When the baby-sitter and another person tried to prevent Stine from taking the child, witnesses said Stine pushed them and “tried to swing the kid like a baseball bat,” according to Chaney.

Stine called police several times Saturday night and Sunday morning to insist that he had legal custody of Desire. “He saw his picture flash on the television and said he couldn’t understand why people were making such a big deal about it,” Chaney said.

On Sunday afternoon, Stine brought his daughter to a Buena Park motel where his wife, Lisa Stine, resides. The three then went to the police station. Stine gave Desire to his wife but decided not to go into the station with them, Chaney said.

The Stines have been separated for about a year but continued to have “an on-again, off-again” relationship, Chaney said. Police had visited the family’s apartment several times over the last year on disturbing the peace and domestic disturbances calls, he said.

The parents shared temporary joint custody of Desire pending a final court hearing, but they often argued about the arrangement and sometimes one took the child against the other’s will, Chaney said.

Desire was transported Sunday afternoon to Orangewood, where she will live until a social worker meets with her parents to discuss the custody arrangement. Police investigators also plan to monitor the case.

“Our main concern in this whole case is for the welfare of the child,” Chaney said. “We have to make that our first priority. Where the parents fit in is secondary.”

Though Stine is not sought by police, investigators “would be interested in talking to him to get his side of the story,” Chaney said.

During his phone conversations with police, Stine expressed a willingness to talk with police about the case, Cheney said. But Lisa Stine told police her husband decided against entering the police station out of fear that he might be arrested.