Members of a Pasadena family poisoned last week by PCP in a can of sweetened condensed milk charged Thursday that police treated them as drug suspects and unnecessarily took their children away.

Meanwhile, sheriff's lab tests were released showing no traces of the drug in 13 other milk cans with the same code that were removed Wednesday from the store where the family bought the milk, said Pasadena City Hall spokeswoman Laurie Cottrell.

Yolanda Aldaz, 29, who was poisoned, along with her 57-year-old mother and her children, said police harassed the family, interfered with their medical care and unnecessarily removed the children from the home.

"The Police Department took an accusatory position instead of an investigatory position," said attorney Carlos Fournier, who represents the family.

Aldaz said her mother, Maria Conseulo Aldaz, was poisoned after she made rice pudding last week with a can of La Lechera brand milk. Aldaz said her mother appeared to be suffering from a stroke after sampling the milk and was taken to a hospital March 6.

A day later, Aldaz inadvertently poisoned herself and her two children, 3-year-old Danny Cardoza and 7-month-old Vanessa Cardoza, after she served them the same rice pudding.

But Pasadena police refused to believe the poisoning was accidental, Aldaz said. They searched her house for drugs and kept her children from her, keeping Danny in the hospital and placing Vanessa in a foster home in Pomona, she said.

The children were returned to Aldaz on Thursday.

But Pasadena police say that they acted appropriately. Frank Jameson, a supervisor in the department's youth services division, said children are routinely removed from homes when it appears that they may be in danger.

Jameson said Pasadena police receive at least eight cases a year of children who are poisoned with PCP, a hallucinogen commonly known as angel dust. In those cases, adult drug users cook the drug in the kitchen then use the contaminated utensils to prepare food, he said.

"Given what I know about this case, it was handled very appropriately," Jameson said. "It was consistent with our experience and with the experience of other police departments."

Emery Bontrager, executive assistant with the county Department of Children's Services, agreed. "If the police suspect negligence or physical abuse or the child's health is in danger, then police have the power to take the child into protective custody," he said. Bontrager said the police turned the child over to the county agency for placement in a foster home.