The behavior of the juvenile arrested at Chuck E. Cheese’s on Friday upset and disturbed customers who were in the store at the time of his bizarre behavior but company officials say they did everything they could to distance the juvenile from other children on the play structure.
“(The sky tube) was secured,” said a Chuck E. Cheese’s spokeswoman on Tuesday.
Employees of the Chuck E. Cheese’s on Stevens Creek Road say that as soon as the teen’s behavior was brought to their attention they took action to keep other children from entering the play structure the teen was on.
But the behavior that got the teenager arrested on April 13 was visible to customers not on the play structure.
A Los Altos woman, who asked that her name be withheld, was there with her three boys, ages 3, 6, and 8, along with another 8-year-old friend of her son’s.
She saw the teenager, whom she thought at the time was an adult, on the play structure and alerted an employee to his strange behavior, she said.
“I immediately talked to an employee behind the desk because the man's pants were down and I could see ‘everything’ that he was touching,” she said.
The employees told her they thought the teen was either drunk or had a seizure. A company spokeswoman says a seizure is what was reported by management to the corporate office, and said that since they are not medically trained they cannot assess what caused the inappropriate actions of the juvenile.
But according to Santa Clara County Sheriff’s spokesman, Lt. Don Morrissey, deputies who reported to the scene believe the teen was under the influence of a “controlled substance.”
The juvenile was disoriented, almost hallucinating, and didn’t know where he was, Morrissey said. He also made incriminating statements, but Morrissey was unable to provide more detail on those statements.
The teen is in jail, arrested for annoying and harassing a child under the age of 18. Police cannot release the name of the arrested teen because he is a minor. The case is under investigation.
