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submitted 6 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

The family of 3-year-old Ke’Torrius “K.J.” Starkes Jr. is remembering the little boy as a “joyful,” “brilliant” “happy boy who loved life, who would light up any room that he would enter into.”

The toddler died after he was trapped inside a hot car while in the custody of a worker contracted by the Alabama Department of Human Resources, the state’s child protective services agency, according to the Jefferson County Medical Examiner’s Office and the state Department of Human Resources. The Birmingham Police Department is investigating the death.

K.J. had been left inside a car parked outside a home in Birmingham for several hours during the middle of the day on Tuesday, the Jefferson County Medical Examiner’s Office said.

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[-] AreaKode@lemmy.world 165 points 6 days ago

Wow. CPS takes your kid away, and promptly proves that they aren't capable of being a safe guardian either.

[-] tal@lemmy.today 73 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

Raised by wolves

Hessian wolf-children[19]: 15–7 [20] (1304, 1341 and 1344) lived with the Eurasian wolf in the forests of Hesse:

  • The first boy (1304) was taken by wolves at age 3 and found when 7 or 8 by Benedictine monks, the wolves having cared for him by "surrounding him in cold weather, and fed him the best meat from the hunt." He was later sent to the court of Prince Henry, and became accustomed to human society but said he preferred the wolves.[21]

Frankly, Alabama, I think that you need to up your child-rearing game to at least wolf-level.

[-] Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 139 points 6 days ago

This is fucking infuriating. Pure rage.

I remember being in a car too long around the age of 5/6. I'm middle aged, I still remember due to the mild trauma.

Fuck. This poor kid died suffering, crying, screaming. Until he probably passed out due to exhaustion and dehydration.

FUCK.

Those involved deserve prison. Long sentences.

[-] forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org 63 points 6 days ago

Let's not forget that this was after he had his entire concept of safety and security shattered due to being taken away from his family.

This involved have never deserved the air they breathe.

[-] wheezy@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

This is one of those cases where I wish we had old time "punishment fits the crime" laws.

Don't get me wrong. If we're gonna have a systemic and capital punishment conversation I am absolutely for systems that rehabilitate and work towards reintegrating criminals into society. Failures like this are systemic failures that should really not be only blamed on the individual idiot that did this. We shouldn't have a system that can literally lose a kid for hours. There should be no way for this to even happen. Even IF the person that did this specifically meant to kill the kid (which I hope not).

Having said that. My monkey brain wants the person that did this to have to sit in a hot car until they die.

[-] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago

yea ideally not just the contracted worker, anyone involved in setting up such a soulless shit piece of a system

[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 44 points 5 days ago

If you feel anger. Good. You should. The easiest target is the worker. But ask yourself this. Why was there only one?

The general rule for most professions that deal with kids is that adults should never be alone 1 on 1 with a kid.

This worker is probably paid the least of any profession that deals with children, and they are asked to do it alone, with no backup to help catch mistakes.

So I blame the state for not investing in the well-being of children.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago

That being said, this worker should still be held criminally accountable for the death of this child. Regardless of the states culpability in not allocating enough money to hire the number of workers necessary to care for the children they supervise, this person was still criminally negligent.

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[-] dastanktal@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 days ago

Nah, fuck this opinion. Parents are required to be good parents regardless of how they're getting paid and somebody who has been entrusted to ensure the safety of a child regardless of how they're getting paid should do so in a way that does not ensure their death. When your entire job is child healthcare, forgetting a child in a hot car is completely inappropriate. Not only should they be blackballed from this industry, but they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

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[-] CorruptCheesecake@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

If the state actually invested in things besides private prisons and locking people up for smoking a joint it wouldn't be such a miserable backwards shithole but if the dirt roads leading to the redneck's trailers out in the sticks were paved they wouldn't have their trucks covered in mud every time they went into town and that would infringe on their cultural identity as tribal swamp people.

[-] BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 6 points 5 days ago

Ah yes, the ol', "I don't get paid enough for this shit", defence for letting a child die while in your custody. Solid.

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[-] echodot@feddit.uk 8 points 5 days ago

Yeah but it wasn't like the kid was left in the car for 20 minutes according to the article they were in there for multiple hours. How do you forget about a kid for hours and hours on end?

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[-] fodor@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 days ago

This looks to be a case of manslaughter, defined by state law as if one "(1) Recklessly causes the death of another person." For criminal liability, it really is that simple. The person who did the immediate bad act is charged with the most severe crime.

It seems you want to blame the state. Great! Talking about civil liability, you can be sure the victim's family will sue the worker, their company, and the state, and they'll probably settle out of court because it's a sure win for the plaintiff.

[-] FerretyFever0@fedia.io 92 points 6 days ago

So the family managed to at least keep him alive for 3 years, the state takes him and he's dead after a few hours. This isn't going to go well for anybody. Poor kid.

[-] StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world 62 points 6 days ago
[-] LadyButterfly@reddthat.com 18 points 6 days ago

I know it's horrifying. This isn't a momentary lapse there's no defence for it. It's so bad I'm wondering if it's deliberate

[-] njm1314@lemmy.world 50 points 6 days ago

Workers contracted? Independent contractors are allowed to have custody of children? That's psychotic.

[-] Ghyste@sh.itjust.works 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Privatizing everything possible so the maximum number of shitbags enjoy the grift is a repugger wet dream.

[-] skozzii@lemmy.ca 16 points 6 days ago
[-] kerrigan778 8 points 6 days ago

You've got the rest of the union to help you along ... What's going wrong?

[-] cannon_annon88@lemmy.today 5 points 5 days ago

State's rights?

[-] Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 6 days ago

Sounds like that should be illegal. You would at least hope it is but we will sub contract anything.

[-] MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io 52 points 6 days ago

The fact CPS is part of the Department of Human Resources seems about on par for Alabama

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[-] Zink@programming.dev 41 points 6 days ago

The whole domain of foster care, CPS/CYF offices, and adoptions is a huge and tragic world that exists all around us but is invisible to most people.

Almost anybody who works in that world is in the same situation as jobs like teachers and game developers where passionate people are aggressively exploited by the business drones. But they have to deal with sadder higher stakes while getting even worse pay and nowhere near the resources they need. So then they become victims of the system too.

And we all know that here in the US at least, our population does not give a fuuuuuuck about living children breathing air outside wombs. And when they are poor and "urban?" Forget about it.

I can hear conservative distant relatives now: "Sounds like his baby mama should have taken better care of him!" (Of course with the term "baby mama" shoehorned in where it doesn't fit in order to make sure the sentence ends with an air of racism and dehumanization of an innocent child)

[-] andros_rex@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

Oklahoma DHS let a Cherokee girl die just last week. THREE WEEKS MISSING, no report, the just found her body.

[-] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I am so fucking angry. Fuck Alabama.

[-] getoffthedrugsdude@lemmy.ml 43 points 6 days ago

archive link

According to the article the woman picked him up from daycare, went to a supervised visit with the father, then ran errands with K.J. still in the backseat for an hour instead of bringing him back to daycare, then went home and left him for 5 hours still strapped in the backseat and was only made aware he was still there when the daycare called to see why he hadn't been returned.

[-] million@lemmy.world 26 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

How the hell do you forget you have child in a car? That has to be a drug situation or some kind of mental impairment.

[-] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 27 points 6 days ago

How the hell do you forgot you have child in a car?

This situation aside, quite easily. Especially if not your own, you don't drive kids places often, are exhausted or feeling unwell, have too much other stuff getting overwhelming, and of course the kid being nice and quiet. Possibly also just leaving the kid there for a short time at first, and then forgetting, which would be the irresponsible way under these conditions (heat, closed windows, no escape).

[-] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago

It can happen to anyone, according to research. I can’t fathom the guilt someone must feel over such a horrific accident.

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

Toss the perpetrator in a dumpster in Death Valley and lock the top.

[-] MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world 45 points 6 days ago

Several hours? Unbelievable! JFC!

[-] avattar@lemmy.sdf.org 36 points 6 days ago

If I lived in Alabama and CPS tried to take my child away, I would rather die protecting him.

[-] FerretyFever0@fedia.io 29 points 6 days ago

Exactly. Even if the parents are unsafe for the kid, the government's just proved that it's even worse. Good luck trying to get people to give up their kids voluntarily.

[-] PattyMcB@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago

It's not just Alabama.

Georgia has repeatedly failed my kids by not preventing them from being abused (obviously not by me)

[-] FerretyFever0@fedia.io 13 points 6 days ago

This country has repeatedly proven itself to just not care about people, especially kids and the elderly. It's depressing and horrifying and monstrous. Guess we can add that to the pile of depravity.

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[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 12 points 6 days ago

Reconstruction 2: This time we finish the job

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[-] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 6 days ago

Send the guy to prison. Term length doesn't matter.

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[-] BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago

Someone needs to be hanged for this

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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
621 points (100.0% liked)

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