Police Never Even Got out of Their Car to Look for a Teen Trapped in His Van, and People Want Answers

The unthinkable happened when a 16-year-old boy in Cincinnati ended up trapped in the back of his own van in his high school parking lot, called the police twice, and wasn't found until six hours later when it was too late. While more information is still coming out about whether or not police mishandled his case and lead to his untimely death, people are still perplexed as to what actually happened to Kyle Plush, and how.

Police have revealed that they think he was in the third row of his 2004 Honda Odyssey when he leaned over the back seats to grab a tennis raquet from the truck. The van's third row has the ability to fold backwards to create more truck space, and it seems that they weren't locked properly when he leaned over. They folded back, pinning him against the hatch of the trunk upside-down, so the weight of his legs continued to pull the seats against his chest. "The young man was trapped in the third row bench seat, and it is called positional asphyxiation," said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters said. "We are actively trying to identify experts to assist us in this investigation." Honda itself has now released several recalls for this issue, and has also released a video to show drivers how to safely lock their seats.

With all due respect.. Cincy 911 center.. in its incompetence directly caused the death of Kyle Plush… heads should roll… but they will not..🇺🇸🇺🇸

— Bill Cunningham (@Willie700WLW) May 14, 2018

But Kyle didn't die immediately. As a matter of fact, he managed to call 911 twice, using voice commands on his phone. He had a three-minute conversation with an operator at 3:14, in which he said, "Help, help, help. I'm stuck in my van outside the Seven Hills parking lot. Help. I need help." The operator insists they couldn't totally hear him, but they still dispatched cops to the lot. Body-cam videos from that day show the cops arriving at the school, where they thought they were searching for a woman trapped in a van. However, people were shocked to see that they never even got out of the car. They drove around for three minutes, turned off their cameras, and left.

Around 3:34, Kyle called once more, but wasn't able to respond to the operator. At 9 p.m. that evening, police finally returned to the scene and found his lifeless body in the back of the van.

https://twitter.com/DeerfieldPost/status/996000116006969344

On May 14, Kyle's father Ron said, "One thing I've heard over the past month is what happened to Kyle was the perfect storm. So was this the perfect storm or a series of multiple failures? I was expecting that by hearing the police report today, many of my questions would be answered. This is not the case."

However, the investigation released that day determined that both the 911 call operators and the police officers did nothing wrong. The mayor seems to feel differently. "At a big picture level, it's important to say that I think we failed. We failed to get the outcome we wanted in this emergency response," Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said. Ron wants to see some changes made to be sure they do their due dilligence next time. "Kyle will give us the strength and guidance to get the job done." We sure hope so. RIP Kyle.