Man in Charge of North Vegas Water System Once Poisoned an Entire Youth Football Team
A man who was once convicted of poisoning a group of children because they allegedly bullied his son was, until this week, in charge of the drinking water for a much larger group of people: the citizens of the city of North Las Vegas, who probably, most likely, had nothing to worry about.
He’s since been reassigned, but according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, city officials were unaware of Jerome Breland’s 2001 criminal conviction when they put him in charge of the city’s water system.
According to the AP, Breland declined to disclose his crime in his Nevada Drinking Water Distribution and Treatment Operators license application—and with good reason: he’d already demonstrated what might happen when given access to drinking water. The details, via the Review-Journal:
Accounts of the specifics differ, but one fact is consistent throughout the criminal case: Breland wanted to hurt a child or children on the team who he felt had wronged his son.
Breland told police he was tired of seeing his child get picked on, so he mixed ipecac into a bottle of juice, then gave it to his son for practice with explicit instructions not to drink it and to remain silent when other children did, according to a police report. Ipecac is an over-the-counter medicine that causes vomiting and was once used in the emergency treatment of certain kinds of poisoning.
The boy told police he repeatedly warned his teammates not to drink from the bottle, but that only exacerbated the problem by causing more children to drink from it, according to the report.
At Breland’s sentencing, parents and children recounted their confusion and horror at Breland’s actions and claimed it was Breland’s boy who was the bully.
Breland did spend the last eight years working directly with the city’s water without, to anyone’s knowledge, poisoning anyone. Still, he’s been reassigned to the waste water division while state officials investigate the complaint, which was filed with the Division of Environmental protection.
Anyway, it’s all good, say city officials.
“There’s no harm to the water,” North Las Vegas Assistant City Manager Ryann Juden tells FOX 5 Vegas. “There’s no need to be concerned about anything.”
