Father facing charges of child neglect

Erica D. Johnson

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2003 | 11:08 a.m.

A Boulder City man who had left his three young children alone in a truck when it rolled down his driveway and into a block wall will face a child neglect and endangerment charge in District Court.

Authorities say Joseph Pfeiffer left two 3-year-olds and a 5-year-old strapped in his pickup truck while he ran into his house to retrieve his cell phone.

Clark County prosecutor Ron Bloxham, who screens cases for the district attorney's office, said Pfeiffer's actions clearly constitute child neglect as defined by state laws.

"If people intentionally leave their children in a vehicle, exposing them to danger, that fits the definition of child endangerment," he said.

Authorities say Pfeiffer had strapped the two youngest children into car seats and the oldest child in a seatbelt and was about to pull out of his driveway when he realized he had forgotten his cell phone and went back inside for a moment.

When he returned, the truck was gone, police said.

"He immediately thought someone had stolen the vehicle," Bloxham said. "The vehicle had rolled quite a distance."

The truck had rolled down the driveway, across the cul-de-sac, down an embankment and into someone's yard, where it hit a wall.

Police said the car was a manual transmission and that Pfeiffer may have forgotten to engage the emergency brake.

A neighbor heard the crash and called police. The children were not injured.

Police also found a loaded handgun under the driver's seat. Pfeiffer won't face additional firearm charges because the gun was legally registered to him, Bloxham said.

"We didn't tack anything on for that, although that's not a good thing either to leave a firearm around small children," he said.

Prosecutors issued a summons for Pfeiffer's arrest. He has about three weeks to turn himself in to authorities, Bloxham said.

If convicted, Pfeiffer faces probation or up to a year in the Clark County Detention Center. He can also be fined up to $2,000.

Prosecutors have filed criminal charges against at least a half-dozen other parents who have left their children alone in cars this summer.

Two children -- a 7-month-old boy and a 2-year-old girl -- died after being left alone for hours in cars.

Prosecutors did not file criminal charges in those two cases, however, saying the parents did not intentionally leave the children in cars.

Bloxham said parents should be cognizant that anything can happen when they leave their children unattended in vehicles.

He pointed to another case in which Maria Door-Soto of Las Vegas left her child in a car while she ran into a shoe store. In that case the car was stolen.

The child was later found unharmed in the car. Door-Soto also faces a child neglect charge.

"There are a million things that could go wrong," Bloxham said. "It highlights why we should not leave a small child in a vehicle."

Clark County Commission Chairwoman Mary Kincaid-Chauncey plans to introduce an ordinance that would make it a crime to leave children unattended in a vehicle.

Under that ordinance anyone convicted of leaving a child in a car would be subject to a fine and would have to attend parenting classes. A similar bill died in the last legislative session.