Was There Negligence in the Fatal Fire?

Kenneth Mortis

Was there negligence in the death of four-year-old K’Lee Flores? Social media has been buzzing and even at the scene of the fire, the question of who is ultimately responsible for the tragedy came up. Station Supervisor at the National Fire Service, Kenneth Mortis says that outside of a dialogue with a police investigator, there may be need for intervention by the Human Services Department in cases like these. Mortis says that preventative measures must be looked at.

Kenneth Mortis, Station Supervisor, National Fire Service

“I’ve sat with the representative from the police department and I’ve shared with them my findings and we kinda like exchanged notes, so to speak. These kinds of happenings are somewhat regular whereby adults leave kids watching kids. Am I to say that the parent is to blame? That is not for me to say. Am I to say the twenty-year-old is to blame? We are not here to do the blame game, so to speak. It would be probably best if human development can weigh in on this matter, especially the fact of a child’s life being lost. Where do we go from here? In terms of trying to best lay the foundation in terms of how to go about our daily lives where minors are involved, especially of this nature – the four-year-old having a medical challenge, so to speak. It is something that we need to look at carefully and see what is in place to not just quickly say who is to blame, but see what’s in place to prevent further happenings from happening. Regardless of how it happened, a fire occurred, a life was lost and now we have to see where we go from there; what preventative measures can we put in place.”