Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

Private citizens can never file criminal charges for any reason. The procedure is to report the incident to the police. If the police believe that a crime was committed, they refer the case to the district attorney. If the DA thinks the case is strong enough, the DA files charges.

If there are no court orders in place regarding your 17 year old, then as long as you know where your child was, there is nothing the police can do under the juvenile code. If there was a court order, you could complain about criminal custodial interference.