LAS VEGAS ( KLAS ) — Two Henderson parents were arrested Tuesday after an 11-year-old child diagnosed with autism was found in a makeshift ‘jail cell’ after being absent from school, according to police documents obtained by 8 News Now.
On April 23, at around 10:15 a.m., officers with the City of Henderson Police Department and the Clark County School District Police Department did a welfare check in the 2000 block of Silverton Drive near Wigwam and North Green Valley parkways.
The welfare check was requested due to a truancy, or absence from school, issue involving a student. The truancy officer told police that when they knocked on the door, no one answered, but they could hear a child screaming and a gate rattling inside, according to an arrest report.
When police arrived, it was approximately 40 minutes before the door was answered by Jeffery Scanlan, 41. He told police his children had been absent from school because they were sick, the report stated.
When police asked Jeffery if they could check on the children, he agreed and led them inside, where police found an 11-year-old boy in a “large metal enclosure” with metal bars and locked doors, “similar to a jail cell,” according to the report.