{"id":2658,"date":"2025-07-27T18:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T18:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/?p=2658"},"modified":"2025-07-27T18:59:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T18:59:13","slug":"tragedy-in-alabama-toddler-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/?p=2658","title":{"rendered":"Tragedy In Alabama: Toddler Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Toddler Dies After Being Left in Hot Car by State Contractor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three-year-old Ke\u2019Torrius \u201cKJ\u201d Starkes Jr. died after being left for hours in a hot car by a contracted worker for Alabama\u2019s Department of Human Resources (DHR). On June 22, KJ was found unresponsive outside a Birmingham home after being left in the vehicle from 12:30 PM to 5:30 PM, when temperatures reached 96\u00b0F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>KJ had been taken from daycare for a supervised visit with his father. Afterward, the Covenant Services Inc. employee allegedly ran personal errands\u2014including a smoke shop and food stop\u2014before leaving the boy in the car and going home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is a heartbreaking and preventable tragedy,\u201d said the family\u2019s attorney, Courtney French. \u201cThe very system that is in place for his protection was the system that led to his death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DHR confirmed the worker was fired. \u201cOur baby should be alive,\u201d KJ\u2019s parents said in a statement. An investigation is ongoing, and no charges have been filed yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toddler Dies After Being Left in Hot Car by State Contractor Three-year-old Ke\u2019Torrius \u201cKJ\u201d Starkes Jr. died after being left for hours in a hot car by a contracted worker for Alabama\u2019s Department of Human Resources (DHR). On June 22, KJ was found unresponsive outside a Birmingham home after being left in the vehicle from&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2660,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658\/revisions\/2660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}