GA - Kendrick Johnson, 17, Suspicious Death, Jan. 10/11, 2013, #1

[FrayedKnot]

When u roll these mats the bottom end would probably roll tighter than the top .. so as ur going in head first ur head and shoulders are lodging tighter ...someones either flung his shoe in there or hes climbed in messing around got his foot stuck hence pulling and lost a shoe and then gone in the other way to try to retrieve it.. miss judging the length..

Curious; why would a rolled mat be tighter at the bottom than at the top?

 

[Yoda]

I really cannot say what the original formation of those mats was, but in my mind's eye, I pictured a greater number of mats clustered closer together to make a more solid surface upon which to sit or walk. This set up seems unlikely or at least not conducive to sitting/ walking upon and accidentally falling in.

This thing confounds me. I want to KNOW wtf was the EXACT set up, how EXACTLY KJ was found, when the photos were taken and why six hours passed before the coroner was called (in violation of GA law) and why there are THREE pairs of shoes. Plus about 10 other questions.

Oops. Sorry. The photo was from cnn and well after the incident, not immediately after. I posted it so people could see the size/height of the mats.

 

[FrayedKnot]

Oops. Sorry. The photo was from cnn and well after the incident, not immediately after. I posted it so people could see the size/height of the mats.

Please don't apologize. I wasn't picking your photo apart. I honestly want to know what those mats looked like the morning of KJ 's death.....

I believe those pics were after. I mean, why would there be any reason to take a pic of some rolled up mats just because. Because why? Doesn't make sense.

Thanks for the pics you posted! :seeya:

 

[al66pine]

“It’s been kind of an understanding with all of the coroners from the surrounding counties,” said Prine. “Rather than sitting there in the parking lot waiting for us to finish, you just call them when you get to the body. And I swear to you— no law-enforcement officer touched that body until the coroner got there and examined it.” BBM
Quote from Sheriff Prine, May 4 timeline-of-a-tragedy article
http://valdostadailytimes.com/local/x6223544/Timeline-of-a-tragedy/?mobRedir=false

Prine seems to have said he routinely violates GA law by failing to immediately notify coroners in surrounding counties. I wonder if this is true.

I also wonder if coroners in surrounding counties agree it's "been a kind of understanding" for Sheriff to continue violating the immediate notification law, and if coroners in surrounding counties have raised this issue publicly.

Prine did not say it's "been kind of an understanding" w. Lowndes Co. Coroner. BBM.

IIRC ~April, Coroner said Sheriff's failure to notify the coroner until deputies had been at gym for several hours compromised my investigation. {Paraphrased}
I thought at the time, it was unusual, did not know of coroner’s turf war w. sheriff over county-regional lab, which is not part of state GBI-operated lab system.

http://www.examiner.com/article/valdosta-lowndes-crime-lab-wants-larger-role-but-conflict-of-interest-is-issue
“… then any public-private crime lab should fall under the control of the OFFICE OF THE CORONER. Within the office of the Coroner, there are deputy coroners, medical examiners and their own se [sic] of investigators. Any hiring should be done through the Office of the Coroner.”

Sheriff's "been kind of an understanding" stmt in May and the April 23 article (editorial?) shed some light on his approach to law enforcement.

JM:twocents: and I may be wrong.

 

[Linda7NJ]

Oops. Sorry. The photo was from cnn and well after the incident, not immediately after. I posted it so people could see the size/height of the mats.

I'm wondering why the hell after such a tragedy are the mats still being stored upright?????


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

 

['Ailina]

I'm wondering why the hell after such a tragedy are the mats still being stored upright?????

I'm tellin' ya. Maybe a brave soul here could make a phone call or send an email suggesting those mats be unrolled altogether for storage.

Additionally, I wish some sympathetic philanthropist somewhere would kindly replace ALL the school's mats. They're too painful to look at, and the contamination implications....

 

[Karmady]

I'm tellin' ya. Maybe a brave soul here could make a phone call or send an email suggesting those mats be unrolled altogether for storage.

Additionally, I wish some sympathetic philanthropist somewhere would kindly replace ALL the school's mats. They're too painful to look at, and the contamination implications....

Is this satire? Mats should no longer be stored in the rolled position? I have a feeling there are very few strangers to the situation who are pained by looking at rolled mats. I'm hoping satire.

 

[FrayedKnot]

I'm wondering why the hell after such a tragedy are the mats still being stored upright?????


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

Yipes. I hadn't even thought of that! :facepalm:

 

[FrayedKnot]

Is this satire? Mats should no longer be stored in the rolled position? I have a feeling there are very few strangers to the situation who are pained by looking at rolled mats. I'm hoping satire.

Typically, once a child dies in a way that nobody saw coming but in the future could be easily remedied/avoided by a small change, that change will be made.

Like infant car seats, outlet covers, grates over storm drains, removing doors from junked refrigerators......are those things satirical?

I know if my child died from crawling into an abandoned refrigerator, it would break my heart any time I saw one sitting at the curb, waiting for pickup with the door still on.

It won't cost anybody a thing to store the mats in a different way. After all, they were only upended over last Christmas break. So they used to be stored horizontally rolled before that. No biggie. Especially if it saves another child's life. :twocents:

 

[gia2]

I'm wondering why the hell after such a tragedy are the mats still being stored upright?????


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

Is that a recent picture? I had assumed that was taken while the gym was still out of use after the incident.
I would hope that they'd gone back to what they said they do by keeping them rolled on their side!

 

[FrayedKnot]

Bumping for Kendrick, because the milk ain't clean.......

 

[IzzyBlanche]

I'll believe the official version when someone explains to me how someone with a 19-inch shoulder span can fall into an opening 14 1/2 inches across.

(dimensions from the article I posted upthread)

Also, since the mats were more like 6'2" rather than 7 feet, if KJ's belongings were at the bottom of one, why didn't he just knock it over and grab them off the floor rather than trying to go down from the top trying to reach from a distance that pretty obviously he wouldn't be able to breach?

 

[Karmady]

Typically, once a child dies in a way that nobody saw coming but in the future could be easily remedied/avoided by a small change, that change will be made.

Like infant car seats, outlet covers, grates over storm drains, removing doors from junked refrigerators......are those things satirical?

I know if my child died from crawling into an abandoned refrigerator, it would break my heart any time I saw one sitting at the curb, waiting for pickup with the door still on.

It won't cost anybody a thing to store the mats in a different way. After all, they were only upended over last Christmas break. So they used to be stored horizontally rolled before that. No biggie. Especially if it saves another child's life. :twocents:

so long as people drive their children in cars every day, have backyard swimming pools, stairs in their homes, etc. this type of response is, imo, just irrational. Mats have been rolled. Kids rarely die from rolled mats (if ever, until now). No reason to overreact to a fluke.

jmo

 

[Linda7NJ]

so long as people drive their children in cars every day, have backyard swimming pools, stairs in their homes, etc. this type of response is, imo, just irrational. Mats have been rolled. Kids rarely die from rolled mats (if ever, until now). No reason to overreact to a fluke.

jmo

I try to ensure the safety of my child by obeying the law and utilizing seat belts, my swimming pool has a locked fence and when my child was very young I had a pool alarm, my stairs have railings. It's not irrational. IMO

How hard is it to store them horizontally to ensure it never happens again? If it ever happened at all.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

 

[FrayedKnot]

I try to ensure the safety of my child by obeying the law and utilizing seat belts, my swimming pool has a locked fence and when my child was very young I had a pool alarm, my stairs have railings. It's not irrational. IMO

How hard is it to store them horizontally to ensure it never happens again? If it ever happened at all.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

Especially since that's how they had been previously stored. The day Kendrick died was the first open school day that the mats were stored vertically.

Doesn't seem that hard at all to lie them back down.

 

[FrayedKnot]

I'll believe the official version when someone explains to me how someone with a 19-inch shoulder span can fall into an opening 14 1/2 inches across.

(dimensions from the article I posted upthread)

Also, since the mats were more like 6'2" rather than 7 feet, if KJ's belongings were at the bottom of one, why didn't he just knock it over and grab them off the floor rather than trying to go down from the top trying to reach from a distance that pretty obviously he wouldn't be able to breach?

IzzyBlanche-
So much of this just doesn't "work". And although I am usually quite disgusted with the "misreporting" on the part of MSM, that isn't what this is, IMO.

The LCSD has contradicted the first responders report. The coroner publicly stated that SD was remiss in waiting 6 hours to call his office. The SD stated that kids were always hanging out up on those mats but the school stated they had only been in that position one day whilst school was in session. The day Kendrick died.

Common denominator in this "misinformation" rodeo is the SD.

MOO.

P.S. and I STILL want to know where the third pair of shoes came from....with the orange laces. They are not the ones found in the mat with KJ, nor are they the ones he was supposedly trying to retrieve. It's driving me buggy.

 

[Elley Mae]

The sheriff told The Valdosta Daily Times on May 3 that students who didn’t have lockers kept personal belongings such as gym shoes on top of rolled-up wrestling mats left propped up behind the gym bleachers. Investigators found some of Johnson’s books and one tennis shoe near the body and believe they tumbled from atop the mat when a gym coach frantically pulled it over trying to free Johnson after students spotted his feet.

bbm

http://thegrio.com/2013/09/05/dead-teen-in-wrestling-mat-hit-on-neck-justice-dept-evaluating-death/

Curious? Do we know for a fact that the picture we are seeing (feet and shoes in rolled mat) is actually KJ or is it just to show how KJ was found.

 

[IzzyBlanche]

The sheriff told The Valdosta Daily Times on May 3 that students who didn’t have lockers kept personal belongings such as gym shoes on top of rolled-up wrestling mats left propped up behind the gym bleachers. Investigators found some of Johnson’s books and one tennis shoe near the body and believe they tumbled from atop the mat when a gym coach frantically pulled it over trying to free Johnson after students spotted his feet.

bbm

http://thegrio.com/2013/09/05/dead-teen-in-wrestling-mat-hit-on-neck-justice-dept-evaluating-death/

Curious? Do we know for a fact that the picture we are seeing (feet and shoes in rolled mat) is actually KJ or is it just to show how KJ was found.

Interesting. It's been reported now that kids kept their belongings on top of the mats, under the mats, and by inference from the following quote, IN the mats--otherwise how else could they "reach in" to get things out?

“We found three other kids that knew K.J. and they kept their shoes under the mats because they didn’t have a locker,” said Edwards. “The mats are usually on their sides. They’d normally just lean in, pick the shoes out and change.”

http://valdostadailytimes.com/local/x6223544/Timeline-of-a-tragedy

Also I'm sure that picture is actually of KJ.

 

[Yoda]

Interesting. It's been reported now that kids kept their belongings on top of the mats, under the mats, and by inference from the following quote, IN the mats--otherwise how else could they "reach in" to get things out?

“We found three other kids that knew K.J. and they kept their shoes under the mats because they didn’t have a locker,” said Edwards. “The mats are usually on their sides. They’d normally just lean in, pick the shoes out and change.”

http://valdostadailytimes.com/local/x6223544/Timeline-of-a-tragedy

Also I'm sure that picture is actually of KJ.

I did this all the time growing up. Most schools had wrestling or gymnastics mats rolled and horizontally (I never saw vertical stored mats) against a wall in the gym. If we were visiting another school, and even at our own school-not during gym but for sport teams, we would put our stuff in the end of the mat, hang out on the mats, walk on them ( you'd get yelled at for that though). It was done daily. It was also gross when you unrolled a mat that soda, food, gum had been spilled or left on. We'd also find all sorts of things left in them. It would be thrown in a corner of the gym for someone to eventually come and find.
FYI- those suckers are HEAVY. They are hard to get started rolling and always take more then one person.
JMO, but for someone to have rolled him up, stand it vertically, and move it behind other mats would take several people and a lot of time. Also, if they are thinking someone put him in while it was standing up, picture them trying to do that while he was resisting-flailing and kicking. Or if he was unconscious, I would think he would be too limp to put in. All jmo.

 

[nursemomof4]

I am from Valdosta, Ga and would like to say that the picture posted above, of the mats, would of had to have been taken shortly after Kendrick's death...Kendrick was found in the "old" Gym, which was torn down soon after Kendrick was found...