4-year-old boy found dead inside SUV in Northeast DC
A 4-year-old boy was found dead inside a vehicle in Northeast on Friday evening, according to D.C. police.
Police told WTOP officers were called to Galloway Street and South Dakota Avenue NE in the Fort Totten neighborhood shortly after 5 p.m., for the report of an unconscious child in a car.
WTOP’s news partner NBC Washington reported that the vehicle was a Ford SUV.
The child was unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene, D.C. police said.
“That’s so sad,” neighbor Crystal Wilkerson told NBC Washington. “I’m just surprised nobody saw the child sooner if that’s the case, because there’s traffic up and down here all day long going to the subway, people going home.”
Police have not confirmed any details about how long the child was in the vehicle, his parents’ whereabouts or his cause of death, although NBC Washington reported detectives are investigating whether it was heat-related.
NBC Washington reported a guardian for the child was present at the scene when officers arrived.
The police department’s Special Victims Unit is investigating this case, police told WTOP, and the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death.
Friday was one of the D.C. area’s hottest days so far this year, with temperatures peaking in the low 90s.