Thursday, June 26, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.
A 57-year-old man is facing a child endangerment charge after leaving his 7-year-old son alone in a car parked at the Clark County Government Center for about an hour Wednesday afternoon, police said.
Police say William Calabrese left his burgundy Cadillac running, set the air conditioner thermostat at 76 degrees and locked the car doors before leaving his son sometime before 1:30 p.m. The official temperature around 2 p.m. Wednesday was 88 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
The boy did not appear to be injured and left the parking lot with his aunt almost three hours after his father was arrested.
The arrest comes in the wake of three other cases of parents leaving children in vehicles earlier this month.
A 7-month-old died when his father forgot the baby was in the van for eight hours. Authorities decided not to press charges against David Fish because they said the father did not realize he had left the boy in the van.
Two other parents, Maria Door Soto and Won Chong, are facing criminal charges after leaving their sleeping children in cars.
Chong left his 2-year-old son in his car while he went for a cup of coffee.
Door Soto left her 16-month-old son in her car while she went into a shoe store. Her car was stolen with the child in it, but the car and child were later found unharmed.
In both of those cases the cars were left running with the air-conditioning on and the parents said they could see the car.
In the Wednesday incident, witnesses told police the boy was first seen alone in the car about 1:30 p.m., Lisa Teele, supervisor of Metro Police's abuse and neglect division, said. Police arrived on the scene at 2:15, and Calabrese was arrested around 2:20 p.m., she said.
She said Calabrese told police this wasn't the first time he has left his son alone in a parked car.
"People do this out of convenience. They say they'll just run in and then a run-in turns into an hour," Teele said.
Even with the air conditioner on, the child was still in a dangerous situation, she said.
"You're still leaving a child in a position where they can be harmed," she said.
Someone could have broken into the car and stolen it and the child, or the child could have put the car into drive, she said.
The boy's aunt, who declined to give her name, said Calabrese is a good dad.
"He had to run in and take care of business and his son wanted to sleep," she said, refusing to comment further.
About 5:15 p.m. the boy, who was wearing a black New York Yankees cap, white T-shirt and khaki pants, left the parking lot with his aunt.
Janette Fennell, founder and president of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Kids and Cars, said parents leaving children in cars is a nationwide problem.
"It happens tens of thousands of times a day across the U.S.," she said.
Fennell said one way her group tried to address the problem was by pushing for a state law that would have given parents who left children under 9 alone in a car a $300 fine. The proposed law was not passed by the Legislature.
"We really need to change parents' behavior," she said. "Think of the things that could have happened. Someone could have abducted the child and stolen the car, or the child could have put the car in gear. ... It's always dangerous to leave a child alone in the car."
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