Posted on 07/29/2025 6:43:52 AM PDT by Red Badger
The boy was left for hours while a contract worker for the state ran "personal errands," the family's attorney says
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A 3-year-old boy died in a hot car in Birmingham, Ala., this week while with the state's Department of Human Resources — something the child's parents have called their "worst nightmare."
Ke'Torrius Starkes Jr., who went by "KJ," was found unresponsive in the vehicle outside a home on Pine Tree Drive on Tuesday, June 22, a Birmingham police spokesperson said in a statement.
He was "accidentally left inside ... while in the care of a third-party contracted worker through the Department of Human Resources (DHR)," the spokesperson said.
KJ, who was from Bessemer, Ala., had been put in the temporary custody of the state due to allegations of drug use in his home, an attorney for his parents tells PEOPLE.
The lawyer, Courtney French, says he doesn't know when the boy was first placed with DHR.
KJ was left alone in the car between 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday and was pronounced dead at 6:03 p.m., local NBC affiliate WVTM reported.
The temperature that afternoon reached 96 degrees.
(Excerpt) Read more at people.com ...
Lock whoever did this in a car on a 93 degree day. Leave him or her there until they’re dead. Put it on Pay Per View.
L
Yea Birmingham gets pretty hot in July dimwit.
Bankrupt that jurisdiction.
No one is allowed to make these kinds of mistakes.
Don't get me wrong. Drug use is a real problem in that area. So the allegations might be true. But this is an example of the govt should have been operating under innocent until proven guilty.
I wonder if he passed out from the heat and was therefore unable to exit the hot vehicle on his own, or if he was in the back of a law enforcement type vehicle whose rear doors cannot be opened from the inside? Sad.
Hell, it already is.
Nowadays children must be strapped into car seats they can’t escape...for their “safety”.
Left alone for 5 hours in a car during the hottest part of the day? I’m single with no parenting skills whatsoever and even I would know not to do that.
Yogi could do better with boo boo
Indeed.
Excellent idea.
Hopefully the person who did this is not white else the media will hype it as a racial thing.
Update, and thus explains a lot if you read between the lines...
Nanny state as Mommy Dearest.
“Negligence” is the proper term here. Intent does not matter.
At least, when we were a real country.
So HS took him away from parents HS thought did not treat him right and HS killedhim. That will show those unapproved parents!
Most car seats are pretty hard to unbuckle.
The government screws up, let’s stick it to the taxpayers! That’ll show ‘em.
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