Alabama child dies after being left in hot car while in state custody
Ke'Torrius Starkes Jr, who was in foster care, had been picked up in the late morning on Tuesday by the worker after a supervised visit with his father, the New York Times reported. He was supposed to be transported to a day care program by a worker for the department, which oversees child protection other social services.
Instead the boy was left alone strapped in a vehicle with tinted windows on a hot day in Bessemer, a suburb of Birmingham.
The Birmingham police department said officers went to a private home in Bessemer to respond to a report of an unresponsive child at around 5.30pm and found that the boy was 'accidentally left inside of a vehicle while in the care of a third-party contracted worker through the Department of Human Resources'.
The boy was pronounced dead at the scene, the police said.
The chief deputy coroner of Jefferson county, Bill Yates, told the Times that 'the child was found in a car that was ignition off, doors closed, windows up and it was hot in the car' and so far there was 'no other competing cause of death'.
'A child in DHR custody was being transported by a contract provider when the incident occurred,' a spokesperson for Alabama DHR said in a statement. 'The provider has terminated their employee. Due to confidentiality, DHR cannot comment further regarding the identity of the child or the exact circumstances.'
Police are now investigating the incident to examine for any possible criminal charges in the case.
'We need answers, and we may need to examine state law to make sure this never happens again,' said state senator Merika Coleman, a Democrat.
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