Death in Liberty raises questions of police response

Death in Liberty raises questions of police response

EDITOR:

I am writing about the appalling hypothermia death of the 87-year-old woman in Liberty.

I thought that the job of the police was to “protect and serve.” It is almost beyond belief that the police were called twice by a neighbor who heard someone “crying out” and were unable to locate this woman on her front porch. The second call had three police cars show up and they were still unable to locate her.

Are we to believe that a rain shower kept the officers in their vehicles and unable to look around? Do they not have searchlights on the patrol cars?

This is not acceptable and is shoddy police work at best and just plain indifference at worst. I think that the community and this woman’s family need a full accounting of exactly what happened to cause this preventable tragedy.

JAMES HARLEY

Girard

Parents: Don’t take nap tips from an outdoor billboard

EDITOR:

I am writing to express concern about potentially unsafe infant sleep practices being modeled in outdoor billboard advertising in the Youngstown area sponsored by the National Fatherhood Initiative. These billboards depict a man asleep on a coach with an infant sleeping face down on the man’s chest. Such sleep positioning places the infant at risk of suffocation if the child rolls over into the space between the sofa cushions.

Indeed, this has happened on more than one occasion here in Mahoning County in the last several years. In fact, our Child Fatality Review Board has observed that in the five years between 2000-2004, 18 of the 116 infants who died in Mahoning County died of SIDS and other sleep-related conditions such as suffocation and maternal overlay. These sleep-related deaths accounted for 16 percent — or one in six — infant deaths in Mahoning County during this five-year period.

Simply put, babies sleep safest on their backs and in their own cribs. We applaud the initiative’s efforts to promote responsible fatherhood and ask its sponsors not to inadvertently promote this risky sleep behavior for infants during the campaign.

MATTHEW A. STEFANAK, M.P.H.

Youngstown

X The writer is health commissioner, General Health District in Mahoning County and chair of the Mahoning County Child Fatality Review Board.

A magnificent Friday

EDITOR:

Yes it was a glorious performance of Verdi’s Requiem in the magnificent Stambaugh Orchestra Hall last Friday night.

I feel privileged to live in a town where more than 80 years ago, someone had the vision to ensure that Youngstown will always have a venue that meets the exact demands of the finest artists and the greatest works in the performing arts.

The preservation and restoration of Stambaugh is a work now in progress.

Bravo, Youngstown.

REINETTE UYS

Youngstown