Friday, May 21, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.
Just hours after a campaign was launched to try to prevent more children from being left unattended in vehicles, a Henderson man was arrested by police after he allegedly left his 5-year-old daughter and 5-week-old son inside an SUV while he was shopping for a TV Thursday afternoon.
Sean Gromoll, 25, was arrested and booked into the Henderson Detention Center on two gross misdemeanor counts of child abuse and neglect, Henderson Police spokesman Shane Lewis said.
A security guard at the Wal-Mart store on Marks Street and Sunset Road spotted Gromoll's children inside the family's white Ford Explorer about 4:15 p.m., so she called police, Lewis said.
The windows of the Explorer were open but the children were crying and upset when officers arrived at the parking lot, police said, and the little girl was holding the baby on her lap.
The father spent about half an hour inside the store and when he returned to the parking lot Henderson Police officers were waiting for him.
Both the girl and her infant brother were treated by paramedics on the scene and released to their mother, who had been at work, police said.
The National Weather Service reported the high for Thursday in Southern Nevada was 86 degrees. Temperatures inside a sun-baked vehicle can rise as much as 30 degrees higher than the outside temperature, authorities have said. Janette Fennell, founder of the nonprofit group Kids and Cars that launched the public awareness campaign to warn parents of the dangers of leaving their children in cars, said this morning she was sad but not surprised to hear of the incident.
"What's important to know is that it is happening all the time," Fennell said. "And because it's happening all the time this is why we have to get this campaign going. People need to get the message.
Just hours before the incident Kids and Cars showed members of the media a series of commercials that will run on television, sun shades that will be distributed to the public and window stickers to be posted at businesses -- measures they hoped would remind parents to take their children with them when they leave a vehicle.
The campaign comes after a year's worth of events that have kept the issue in the news. Two children died last summer after their parents forgot them and left them in hot cars for hours.
Other parents have been charged with misdemeanor crimes after leaving their children in vehicles while running errands. In recent weeks:
-- Kathy Lizanne Lawson, 28, is charged with two felony counts of child endangerment after leaving her 8-month old twins in the car while she shopped at a Burlington Coat Factory at Eastern and Tropicana avenues in late April.
-- Maria Guadalupe Avila was charged the same week with leaving her 2-year-old daughter alone in the car at Costco on Marks Street, just down the street from the Wal-Mart where Gromoll allegedly left his children.
-- Also in April, an SUV was stolen with a 1-year-old child inside as the father went into a gas station on Decatur. The thief later abandoned the car with the child inside. No charges were filed in that incident.
In Thursday's incident, Clark County District Attorney David Roger said Gromoll could face a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $2,000 fine for each of the two gross misdemeanor charges. In this case, the children were not injured. If a child is injured as a result of being left in the car or if there are other aggravating circumstances such as the heat, the charge can be a felony carrying punishment of two to 20 years in prison.
In 2003 Las Vegas Fire and Rescue responded to 596 calls about children left alone in vehicles. As of May 13 this year, dispatchers have received 192 calls about children left in vehicles.
"We want to change people's thoughts and actions," Fennell told the media as she was joined by Attorney General Brian Sandoval, and state Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, in unveiling the public awareness campaign. It is a matter of altering the community's perceptions of what is OK to do and what is not, she said.
The key message of the campaign, she said, is to "never leave children alone in or around cars ... not even for a minute."
Part of that message, Fennell said this morning, is to report children left in cars to authorities immediately. She applauded the intervention of the Wal-Mart security guard.
The problem is nationwide, Fennell said, and each case highlights the need to spread awareness.
"A five-year-week old baby can die in a hot car in just 10 minutes," Fennell said. "If that guy was in there for 30 minutes and no one intervened I can almost guarantee that that baby would be dead."
In 2003, 565 children were hurt or killed in incidents in or around cars in the United States, Fennell said. Of that total, 154 children died, she said.
If the Las Vegas campaign is successful, the effort may be expanded into a national program, the group said.
Wiener, who also spoke Thursday, said she would try in the next session of the Legislature to revive a measure that would hold parents accountable for leaving children in cars.
Her Senate Bill 17, which failed to pass in 2003, would have placed a fine of up to $300 on parents who left children 7 years or younger unattended in a vehicle.
The new bill would give guardians the option to take parenting classes instead of paying a fine.
Roger said his office tries to raise awareness of the dangers of leaving kids in cars by prosecuting each incident.
"I would have thought that with all the publicity that these cases receive that people would get the message not to leave their kids in cars," Roger said. "We'll continue to keep beating the drum, to prosecute these cases so that hopefully more people will get it."
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