Police keeping an eye on bill to curtail peeping Toms

Kirsten Searer

Friday, March 18, 2005 | 9:33 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Las Vegas area police departments are pushing a new bill that would allow them to arrest peeping Toms.

The state had a law against peeping into private residences until 1992, when the state Supreme Court struck it down for being too vague. Now peepers cannot be arrested for trespassing unless they have been previously warned by the resident not to enter their property.

Officers often catch people peering into homes or in backyards and have no way to arrest them, representatives of the Metro and Henderson Police departments said. For example, Metro officers recently caught a man wearing a ski mask in a backyard but had to let him go, said Metro Sgt. Dan Coe.

Assembly Bill 190 would make it a category B felony for a person to enter a property with a weapon and peep through a window, door or other opening of a building.

It would be a gross misdemeanor if the peeper had a recording device or camera and a misdemeanor if the person doesn't have a weapon or recording device. The Assembly Judiciary Committee heard testimony on the bill Thursday and will talk about it again in an upcoming work session.

Officers argued that peepers sometimes frequent neighborhoods, and their behavior can escalate until they commit more serious crimes. Some people have been "terrorizing" residents of Southern Nevada, Coe said.

Two residents of a Henderson neighborhood testified about a neighbor who has peeped into several homes in the area, including twice into Stephanie Scales' home. Her family is so scared they have installed cameras around the home, Scales said.

"I never know when he will be back, and he will be back because he obviously continues to commit these crimes in our neighborhood," Scales said.

Another neighbor in the area, Brenda West, said the same peeping Tom served six months in prison after watching one 12-year-old girl but has returned to the area and threatened neighbors who have called the police on him.

"The number of people who had an incident with this particular peeping Tom is astounding," she said. "He has terrorized our neighborhood and we're all scared."

Henderson Officer Joe Roy talked about how he had tracked a peeper for about a year who focused on one neighborhood. He was consistently arrested on charges of stalking and trespassing. He typically went to jail for periods of 10 or 15 days before he returned to the neighborhood, Roy said.

"He was going back to the same yards and basically terrorizing these people," Roy said.

Eventually, the peeper got bolder, breaking into cars, stealing wallets and using credit cards, and attempting to break into houses. He is in jail now, and officers have 14 pending cases of stalking and trespassing to put up against him when he gets out, Roy said.

Officers in Henderson knew about a man who peeped into Green Valley apartment complexes, but could do little, leading some terrorized women to move out of town, said Patricia Longworth, who works with the Henderson Sexual Offender Unit.

"We couldn't take him into custody," she said. "Our hands are tied. He was just going into the complexes, peering in and leaving."

Finally, on Valentine's Day, the man masturbated in front of an apartment and officers were able to arrest him, she said.

"It's a shame that we have to wait until something like this happens," she said. "We should be able to stop it before it gets that far."

Members of the Judiciary Committee expressed general support for the bill but asked if it could hinder private investigators or apply to people who take illicit pictures in areas such as gyms or public bathrooms.