Alabama child dies after being left in hot car while in state custody

An investigation has been triggered after a three-year-old boy died after being left in a hot car by a contractor for the state human resources department in Alabama.

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”.