Right now, our team sits in the office with heavy hearts. Not just because of the quiet rain sweeping across Alabama but because of a different kind of storm, the kind that comes when a system designed to protect children continues to fail them.
In recent weeks, Alabama has been riddled with headline after headline of children neglected, abused, and even dying, some while under active DHR supervision. These are not isolated incidents. They are the outcome of a system in collapse, and innocent children are paying the price.
A mother in Dothan, Alabama, received a letter from DHR after her three-year-old daughter’s arm was broken in two places while in daycare. The letter confirmed that abuse occurred but because the injury happened inside a facility, no one was arrested. No one was held responsible. The facility still operating. That mother is still waiting for justice.
In Auburn, a grieving father begged the state to intervene and remove his teenage daughter from a dangerous home. His pleas went ignored. Now, his daughter and her mother are both dead, murdered by the very man he warned the system about.
In Brent, Alabama, authorities discovered a storm shelter hiding over 10 children, some as young as three, abused, trafficked, and tortured for years. The case has ties to child sex trafficking. Some of the parents were even involved. How many reports were missed? How many signs ignored?
And now, another preventable death.
Three-year-old Ketorrious “KJ” Starks Jr. lost his life while in the custody of Alabama DHR. He was left in a state transport van for more than five hours in the scorching Alabama heat while in the care of a state contracted transporter. By the time anyone found him, it was too late.
This baby was left in what was essentially an oven for nearly six hours.
The transport worker, employed at the time by Covenant Services, has not been arrested. Her only consequence so far has been termination from her position. While speculation about her identity has surfaced, officials continue to conceal her name.
Covenant Services, a company that prides itself on serving individuals and families, has yet to explain how one of their workers could forget a child in a van for hours. In a recording surfacing via social media, the worker can be heard repeatedly apologizing. But no apology can undo the reality that a child was forgotten, neglected, and lost his life under her watch.
And right now at this very moment still no arrest. Let that sink in.
If it were a parent who left a child in a car to die, they would have been arrested immediately. The charges would be stacked. Their names would flood every news feed. They would be called monsters, criminals, unfit.
But when it is a DHR employee or contractor?
Silence. Protection. No perp walk. Just a quiet shuffle behind the walls of the system, and a child who never comes home.
This is what happens when the state polices parents more harshly than it polices itself.
We’ve seen parents lose their children for far less: for missing a doctor’s appointment, for choosing lawful discipline, for past struggles with addiction, or simply for daring to question DHR’s authority. Sometimes, all it takes is whatever a DHR worker feels like calling a threat that day. But when a state employee kills a child in their custody?
They are shielded. Hidden. Treated as if their position excuses the consequences. Not this time.
Her one job was to transport a living, breathing child, and she failed. There is no excuse. We are now awaiting toxicology results, her full identification, and an arrest. Anything less is injustice.
The people of Alabama and families across this country are demanding accountability. We are demanding transparency. We are demanding justice.
Until that happens, there can be no peace. No healing. No trust in a system that continues to bury its failures and silence grieving families.
And to the Governor of Alabama and every lawmaker who claims to care about children, how many more must we lose before you act?
How many more toddlers must die in state custody? How many more parents must be silenced, blamed, or buried in grief before you admit that this system is broken?
This is your moment to lead. Not with words but with action.
We are calling on Governor Kay Ivey, the Alabama Legislature, and every elected official in this state to look this crisis in the face and stop pretending it doesn’t exist. Reform cannot wait. Oversight cannot wait. Accountability cannot wait.
Our children cannot wait.
To KJ’s family, we are sorry. KJ deserved better. You deserve better. Your family deserves justice and accountability, not next year, not next month, but right now.
****Let’s work together as a community to demand the city does what the city knows is right :
We are calling for families across Alabama and the nation to flood the phone lines. Demand an arrest for the death of Ketorrious Starks Jr.
Call Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr:
Phone number:
Demand charges be filed. Ask: Where is the arrest?
Call the Birmingham Police Chief Michael Pickett:
Phone number:
(205) 254‑1700
Tell Chief Pickett: A 3-year-old child died in state custody. If this were a parent, they’d be behind bars. We demand the same for state-contracted workers.
Call today. Call tomorrow. Call until it happens.****
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