Thursday, March 31, 2005 | 11:08 a.m.
A Palace Station security officer came across a suspicious sight Saturday morning: a car parked in a far corner of the parking lot with the rear and side windows covered with newspaper.
The officer approached the silver Toyota Camry and through the windshield he spotted a car seat in the back covered with a blanket, he told Metro Police who were called to the scene along with emergency medical personnel.
A paramedic broke the front driver's side window, according to the police report, and under the blanket authorities found 7-month-old Pepsi Tong, described by police as red-faced and warm.
Police arrested the baby's father, 54-year-old Phonesaunah Vilaysing, for felony child endangerment when he emerged from the casino after gambling for nearly 40 minutes.
Two mothers were also arrested Saturday for leaving their babies and a 2-year-old in their vehicles, and police forwarded another case to the district attorney's office for possible charges.
None of the children had been injured, authorities said.
This year to date, Metro has investigated 21 cases of children being left in vehicles, police said.
Heat isn't as much of a danger now as it will be come summer -- Saturday's high temperature was 65 degrees, according to the National Weather Service -- but police are issuing reminders early that leaving children in a car result in the arrest of the parent or caregiver and serious injury or death of the child.
"It goes beyond the elements," Lisa Teele, supervisor of Metro's abuse and neglect detail, said. "Automobiles can be stolen, vandalized, struck in parking lots, if the keys are in the ignition the kids can put the car into drive -- there are tons of things that can happen.
"As we enter the summer months we are looking beyond these things, we are looking at death."
In addition to police and fire department advisories, a bill was introduced in the state Senate last week that would make it a crime to leave a child 7 or younger unsupervised in a car.
The Vilaysing case was the first of the three incidents of children being left in vehicles Saturday, and it was the only one that police said involved deliberate concealment of the child.
When he came out of the casino he told officers he stopped at Palace Station to use the bathroom because he had the stomach flu, but police checked his player's card and found he gambled for 37 minutes.
Police said they discovered Vilaysing's baby was "medically fragile" -- he had been hospitalized several times due to complications resulting from a premature birth. He was born at about 25 weeks gestation, police said.
Also, in January, Metro's abuse and neglect officials and Clark County Child Department of Family Services opened an investigation after the baby, Pepsi, suffered a fractured skull when his grandmother accidentally dropped him on a tile kitchen floor.
Family services kept their case open because of the infant's medically fragile condition, police said, and made sure that he was receiving proper medical care.
Vilaysing stated "he did not think he had done anything wrong by leaving his infant son in the endangering circumstances he had," police noted in the report.
About four hours after getting Pepsi out of his father's car police were called to Fashion Q on North Nellis Avenue near Charleston Boulevard.
A passerby heard two babies -- six months and 16 months old -- crying in a car, and he stuck his arm through the partially open window, unlocked the door and picked up one of the babies, trying to provide comfort, police said.
Inside the store, police said, the babies' mother, Miriam Colin-Martinez, 29, was looking through racks of clothing and tried on several items in the dressing room. She had a third child, a 4-year-old boy, with her.
The store manager told police Colin-Martinez was in the store for 30 to 45 minutes before she went into the parking lot and saw a stranger holding her baby, police said.
Police asked her why she left her children in the car and she said they were sleeping, according to the report. When officers told her what she was being charged with and why, she "stood there stone-faced," police said.
"When I told her the children would be taken to Child Haven she just shrugged her shoulders," the officer wrote in the report.
Around the same time, at Food 4 Less on North Decatur Boulevard at West Lake Mead, a shopper loading groceries into her car spotted a 2-year-old boy in a car seat in a white Oldsmobile minivan and called police.
An officer unlocked the door through a window that was partially open and noted in the police report that "it took only approximately 10 seconds to get into the van."
About five minutes later Joshua Cruz's mother, Labrea Van Putten, 22, came out of the store and said she left him in the van because she was only going to be gone for a few minutes, police said. Officers estimated the boy was alone in the vehicle for 20 minutes.
Teele said, "We cannot place our children in a position where they can be harmed in any way."
Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, introduced a bill last week to prohibit people from leaving children 7 or younger in vehicles without supervision.
Senate Bill 287 said a person would be guilty of a misdemeanor if he or she left the child in a vehicle unless the youngster was supervised in the vehicle by a person who is at least 12 years old.
However, a judge could suspend the sentence if the individual takes a parenting class concerning the dangers of leaving a child unattended.
The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee.
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