Tuesday, March 4, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
A Juvenile Court judge was scheduled today to hear the case of a 9-year-old Las Vegas boy arrested on a felony charge for writing his name in wet cement.
Barbara Anderson, the boy's mother, said she hoped the hearing would clear up what she described as "a complete miscarriage of justice."
"My son did nothing wrong, nor was what he did malicious," she said of about 20 feet of sidewalk where her son wrote his friends' names and his own outside the family's condominium complex in the 900 block of Dusty Creek Street, off Washington Avenue and Durango Drive.
Anderson said she is angered most by how local authorities handled the case, arresting her son at school and booking him into Juvenile Hall without ever notifying her.
Her hopes to defend her son in court were hampered after learning that Nevada's confidentiality statutes prevent her from seeing her son's file, which has been sealed.
Jeremy was expected to enter his plea today, at which point he can be granted a public defender.
The incident that landed the youngster in trouble occurred last fall when he and four friends were on their way home from school.
An unknown man, Jeremy said, waved them over to a freshly poured cement sidewalk and asked the kids if they wanted to write their names on it.
"The man said I could, so I did," Jeremy said. "I wrote my name and my friends' names and stuff."
Jeremy said the man left the area before he and his friends started fingering their artistry into the sticky mess. Some of the kids, he said, made hand and footprints.
"After that, this contractor knocks on my door saying I owe him $11,000," his mother said. The amount, he told her, was the cost to re-lay a flawless slab.
"I don't have $11,000. I don't even have $11," she said. "He left his business card with me, but I heard nothing more from him and threw it in the trash."
All had been forgotten when, on Jan. 28, Jeremy was asked to leave class and go to the principal's office where he was arrested by Metro Police on the felony charge.
When the school bus arrived that afternoon without Jeremy on board, Anderson said she called McMillan Elementary School in a panic about 4 p.m. and was told police had taken her son.
On instinct, she drove to Juvenile Hall.
"They brought him out in front of me and read him his rights," Anderson said. "They told me that a bench warrant had been issued for his arrest. They said Jeremy had signed an admission-of-guilt form and waived his rights to an attorney. He couldn't waive his rights -- he's only a 9-year-old boy."
In Nevada, police can legally arrest anyone 8 years and older for a crime, and property crimes above $5,000 are considered felonious.
"Jeremy isn't a bad kid," his mother said. "He gets good citizenship awards in school. He's the least likely of any of my three kids to get in trouble."
Jeremy submitted to a strip search, peeling off all but his underwear, before being placed in a holding tank with older kids.
"One of them had stolen a woman's purse, another one shot somebody," Anderson said. "The punishment should fit the crime. My son was terrified. All he did was write his name in cement, and they put him in jail with hardened criminals."
Because Jeremy is a minor, Metro Police and officials at Clark County Juvenile Hall were barred by law from commenting directly on his case.
Kirby Burgess, director of Clark County's Family and Youth Services, said that booking a child into Juvenile Hall involves strip searches.
"When a child comes in, we take all their property, for both their safety and ours," Burgess said. "If we were to let weapons or contraband or drug paraphernalia get in here, can you imagine the problems that could occur?"
Authorities hold the children until their parents or legal guardians can be contacted. Adults are required to go through a counseling session to determine if the children would be safer going home or staying at the facility.
Burgess said they try to be cognizant of children's ages and charges when housing them, but cramped conditions often supersede the best intentions. On Monday, for example, there were 207 children in the juvenile detention center, which was built to accommodate about half that number.
Jeremy said he didn't know what papers he was signing when he was booked, and described the Juvenile Hall experience as "kinda scary." But he maintains he didn't do anything wrong on that fateful day last fall because "I had permission."
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