3-year-old found dead in vehicle on blistering
day, at Miami Gardens preschool, police say
A 3-year-old toddler died Monday outside a Miami
Gardens preschool after spending as many as six hours
trapped inside a sweltering vehicle during one of the
hottest days of the year, according to police. Law
enforcement sources said the toddler was one of several
children from the same family who attends the Lubavitch
Educational Center at 17330 NW Seventh Ave. Police
believe the father, who was driving the vehicle and
works at the center, accidentally left the child locked
inside it early Monday as the family made its way into
the school. The temperature in Miami reached 93 degrees
Monday, with the heat index a blistering 103. It would
have been much hotter and suffocating inside an enclosed
vehicle that had been in the sun for most of the day.
A source said the father — who along with the dead
child hadn’t been named by Monday night — hurried out to
the vehicle at about 3 p.m. after someone at the school
mentioned that they hadn’t seen his child all day. He
was too late. Police detectives were interviewing the
father well into the evening Monday to determine whether
the death was an accident. As of Monday night, Miami
Gardens Police only released a two paragraph official
statement that said the child was transported to the
hospital and had died. Police were seeking a warrant to
access surveillance video from the school or any
surrounding buildings that might shed light into what
exactly happened. It wasn’t immediately clear how many
of the children in the family attended the school. Late
Monday night, the Lubavich Education Center released a
statement calling it a “tragedy,” and saying that the
3-year-old was the child of two employees who work at
the center. Lubavich Dean Benzion Korf also said a
therapist and grief counselor will be available for
staff and students on Tuesday.
“The tragedy hits
close to home and many in our school community have been
affected by it,” Korf said. “No words can capture the
heartbreak and sadness we feel.” The Orthodox Jewish
center’s, or Chabad’s website, says it offers camp and
classes from preschool through high school. It was too
early Monday evening to determine if the father would be
charged with a crime. Although it happens, charging
parents for their child’s death inside a vehicle isn’t
all that common. Detectives gathering information in the
Miami Gardens case will pass it along to the Miami-Dade
State Attorney’s Office, which will determine if any
charges will be filed. Florida, with its blistering
summertime heat index, has the second-highest number of
hot car deaths in the country since 1998, with just over
100. In 2018 and 2019, 53 children died in each year
from heatstroke in a vehicle, the majority of them after
being forgotten by a parent, according to the National
Highway Transportation and Safety Administration.