A contracted employee of the state’s Department of Human Resources left a three-year-old kid in a hot automobile for hours before he died.
On Tuesday, June 22, Bessemer resident Ke’Torrius “KJ” Starkes Jr. was discovered unconscious inside a car parked outside a residence on Pine Tree Drive in Birmingham.
KJ was in the automobile from around 12:3 PM to 5:30 PM, Birmingham police said, according to PEOPLE.
According to lawyer Courtney French, he was declared dead at 6:03 PM after local temperatures hit 96 degrees with a heat index that may have caused the car’s inside to reach 150 degrees.
French, who works for the boy’s family, claimed that because of claims of drug usage in the home, the youngster was temporarily placed in DHR’s custody.
That morning, KJ was taken from nursery to go to a DHR office in Bessemer for a monitored visit with his father. The employee, who works for Covenant Services Inc., is accused of running personal errands after the visit while the child was still buckled up in his car seat.
French informed the newspaper that stops included going to a smoke shop and getting meals. Then the worker left KJ in the car and went home.