Editorial: Cars no place to leave kids

Friday, April 1, 2005 | 9:07 a.m.

Four young children who survived being left alone in cars Saturday were fortunate it was only a warm day, not a hot one. It's dangerous at any time to leave a small child alone in a car, but hot days are killers, as a number of tragedies in Las Vegas over the past several years attest. Astoundingly, many parents are aware of the potential for tragedy but take the risk anyway. The incidents Saturday involved parents who consciously left their children alone in their cars.

A father abandoned his 7-month-old boy for nearly 40 minutes while he gambled. He had covered the rear and side windows with newspapers, and the child's car seat with a blanket. Owing to a security guard, who found the sight suspicious, the boy was rescued, although he was "red-faced and warm," according to Metro Police. Two other babies, one six months old and the other 16 months, were left alone in a car while the mother spent more than a half-hour inside a clothing store. Another mother left her 2-year-old boy in a minivan while she was grocery shopping. Police estimated the boy had been alone for about 20 minutes. On a hotter day, the children could have died or been permanently injured within just a few minutes of being left alone. Or the cars containing them could have been stolen or broken into, putting the children in harm's way.

Many parents over the years have anguished after accidentally leaving their children alone in cars and later discovering them dead. A bill in the Legislature this year would make it a misdemeanor crime to leave a child 7 or younger in a car unsupervised, accident or not. Where there's evidence of intentionally leaving a child in a car, a charge of felony child endangerment is warranted. This is the charge that the parents involved in Saturday's incidences face. In cases where the child dies or is injured, the charge should be even stronger.

If there is a glint of positive news about Saturday, it's that in all three cases either a security guard or a passerby alerted police to the children's danger. With summer approaching, we just hope drivers with small children are a part of this growing public awareness.