Father Who Left Boy in Sweltering Car Is Sentenced

A high school English teacher who left his 20-month-old son in a locked car in 100-degree heat was sentenced Thursday to the time he already served in jail and 100 hours of community service in a children’s hospital. He was placed on three years probation under a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Dennis Karl Fischer, 34, of Paramount, avoided a preliminary hearing on a felony child endangerment charge by pleading guilty to the reduced charge of misdemeanor child endangerment. A felony conviction would have carried a maximum six-year prison term.

After imposing the sentence on Fischer, Van Nuys Municipal Judge Jessica Perrin Silvers told him that “something could have happened,” as a result of the incident. “How lucky you are that it didn’t.”

Outside the courtroom, both the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew W. Diamond, and Fischer’s attorney, Jan W. Versteeg, said they were pleased with the settlement.

“We’re totally satisfied,” said Versteeg after Fischer declined to comment. “Mr. Fischer has an absolutely clean record. He just used extremely poor judgment.”

Diamond said Fischer’s lack of a criminal record and exemplary performance as a teacher played a strong part in deciding to settle the case.

“I think it was an isolated incident,” he said. “I think 100 hours of community service, especially at a children’s hospital, is appropriate.”

Fischer, who teaches 10th and 12th grade English and is the department chairman at Fremont High School in South-Central Los Angeles, was also ordered to pay $100 to the state restitution fund and to complete a 13-session parenting class. Fischer received credit for the four days he was jailed before being released on $10,000 bail.

According to police, Fischer left his son, Jarred, locked inside the car in front of a Foster’s Old Fashioned Freeze in the 7300 block of Reseda Boulevard on Aug. 14.

Police estimated that the temperature inside the car had reached 110 degrees and that the child could have suffered brain damage or death.

Fischer told police he had gone into a record store and was gone only about five minutes, but passersby told police he was gone 20 minutes or more.

When the toddler began screaming while his father was away, a passerby slipped a fan belt in the crack of the window to lower it and then opened the door to pull the child out.

The child, who was flushed and perspiring, was given water, wrapped in a wet towel and kept in an air-conditioned car to lower his body temperature. One of the rescuers called police.

Meanwhile, Fischer returned to his car and found the boy gone. Fearing that his son had been kidnaped, he, too, called police.

Police arrested Fischer and placed the boy with social workers. The boy was later returned to his mother.