Sidney Deal Las Vegas father charged w/ toddler daughter hot car death after dad refused to let cops break window cause he couldn’t afford cost of new window.
When your new car is worth more than your child…
A Las Vegas father was arrested after refusing to break the window of his new car to save his dying toddler, authorities said.
Sidney Deal, 27, flagged down officers after having left his 1-year-old daughter Sayah Deal in a hot car Monday afternoon with the keys inside, the Las Vegas Sun reports.
The officers offered to break the window, call a tow truck or get a locksmith, but Deal declined, saying he couldn’t afford to damage his new car. The father said the air conditioner was on, and the girl was OK.
Instead Deal insisted on calling his brother to ask him about the insurance plan. Again this time the brother offered to wrap his shirt around his hand and punch out the window, authorities said.
Cause of death pending
After several minutes, the officers smashed the window and pulled out the unresponsive girl, who died at the scene, police said.
The cause of death is pending, but authorities believe that she had been trapped in the car for more than an hour.
Detectives interviewed Deal’s brother who said he received a call from him saying he accidentally locked Sayah in the car, which he claimed had the air-conditioning running, KVVU reported.
Deal’s brother told police he was confused by the call and quickly headed to his home where he offered to smash in the car window and save the trapped toddler.
Not enough money to fix a broken window
Instead Deal stopped him and claimed that he didn’t have enough money to fix a broken window. He instead dispatched his brother to call their mom to have her insurance company send a locksmith.
Deal’s girlfriend also told police that she called the insurance company for him, but he told her to hang up when he didn’t agree with the price quoted for a tow truck, the Las Vegas Sun reported.
The father has since been booked into the Clark County Detention Center on one count of child abuse or neglect causing substantial bodily harm. He is being held on $20,000 bond.
Mother defends against claims her son was negligent
The father who had been scheduled to appear for a Tuesday court arraignment did not appear due to a medical issue with the man’s family instead holding a press conference outside of the Las Vegas courthouse KTNV reported.
Artavia Wilson, Sydney Deal’s mother, rejected comments in court that her son was negligent, saying he ‘thought his daughter was in air [conditioning].’
‘The car was running,’ Wilson told reporters, holding back tears, ‘and she was in the car.’
In the background, another family member can be heard saying, ‘If there was something wrong then the cop would have broke the window.’
