A 7-year-old’s death from ‘positional asphyxia’ at Kentucky youth facility exposes years of alleged abuses

Ja’Ceon Terry was 7 years old when he suffocated to death in the care of people who were supposed to look after him when his parents could not.

The boy was a ward of the state and had been staying at Brooklawn, a foster care facility in Louisville, Kentucky, for children with mental and behavioral needs, when he died July 17 of “positional asphyxia,” according to the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office.

On the day Ja’Ceon died, a program manager recalled being told that the child had been held in a chokehold by two employees and that he began to vomit, according to a source with knowledge of the encounter.