Thursday, July 10, 2003 | 11:28 a.m.
A Las Vegas mother has been arrested for leaving her 3-year-old daughter in a car, and Metro Police investigated the parents of four children who were left in an air-conditioned car downtown on Monday.
Since May 1 Metro Police have investigated 12 incidents of children left in vehicles across Southern Nevada, police said. It was immediately unclear how many parents face charges in those cases.
In the latest case, Elizabeth Albarran, 28, was arrested after leaving her child in her car unattended. According to police reports, she told officers that she left her child asleep in the car Tuesday while she went into Family Medical Center, 4451 W. Flamingo Road, for a job application.
Albarran said that she was gone for five minutes, but when she returned to the car she discovered her keys locked inside the car.
She ran back into the medical center and an employee dialed 911, the police report said.
When paramedics arrived, they broke a window to reach the girl, who appeared to be unconscious or asleep and was sweating profusely, the report said. The air temperature in the parking lot at the time was 108 degrees Fahrenheit.
She was treated and released for heat exposure. Albarran was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on a child endangerment charge, police said.
Albarran could not be reached for comment. She had been released from the detention center, a spokeswoman said.
On Monday a Metro patrolman noticed four children in a car parked across the street from the Clark County Courthouse. The engine was running and the air conditioning was on, the police report said, although all of the children were under 5 years of age.
A man and a woman, who were tourists, had left the children in a Ford Explorer to obtain a marriage license and then were married, the police report said. They were not arrested after returning to the car while the patrolman was still present, the police report said.
However, Lt. Jeff Carlson of Metro's Abuse and Neglect Unit said both incidents will be forwarded to the district attorney's office, who will decide whether to file charges.
Deciding whether to arrest a parent on the spot depends on "the totality of the circumstances," Carlson said, noting that includes the age of the child and injuries the child may have suffered, such as dehydration.
"We're not out there to throw people in jail for this," Carlson said. "If the child is injured and it's reckless, then they will go to jail."
Janette Fennell, founder and president of the non-profit advocacy group Kids and Cars, said Nevada needs a specific law on the issue, and her group has lobbied for such a law. She said it's very confusing to understand why one case goes one way and another case goes another way.
"It's very difficult to understand but at the same time there has not been good education" on the issue, Fennell said. "Right now in Nevada there are only two choices -- scolding them or charging them with child endangerment."
Daniel Dodson of the National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers said that each case is different depending on the facts.
Although there is no specific law, Dodson said, "It's more of a situation of how far the prosecutor should go in inserting the state into decisions that should be left to parents."
"Fairness on that level has to be determined by the prosecutor," said Dodson.
Clark County Assistant District Attorney Chuck Thompson said there is "arguably a crime that has been committed" when a parent leaves a child in a car and the child is "in danger of being hurt, injured of killed because of the weather or because someone might take the car."
"The difficulty is proving intent," he said. "The crime requires us to prove the element of willfulness. To prove intent, it has to be something other than a complete mistake.
"In some cases, parents intend to leave their child unattended. Because there was an intent, then they are guilty of a gross misdemeanor." In one case, Maria Door Soto left her 16-month-old son alone on June 3 while checking to see if a shoe store was open. In the brief moments she was gone, her car was stolen. The car was recovered hours later and her son was unharmed. She has charges pending against her.
In another incident, on June 6 a father left his 2-year-old son unattended while spending a few minutes getting coffee. Won Chong is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing before Justice of the Peace Tony L. Abbatangelo on Aug. 8.
District Attorney David Roger decided that both the woman and the man should face gross misdemeanor charges of child endangerment.
In a third case, a man drove to work on June 5 and left his 7-month-old son in the back of his van for more than eight hours. The child died. The man told police that because he had changed his morning routine, he forgot his son was in the van. Roger ruled that the father did not intentionally leave his son in the van and did not charge him with negligence. Sun reporters
Afsha Bawany, Erica Johnson and Jen Lawson contributed to this story.
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