FREEDOM EDEN: Makyla K. Johnson: Suspected Co-Sleeping Death

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Makyla K. Johnson: Suspected Co-Sleeping Death

Makyla K. Johnson was only 9 months old when she died.

She had been put to sleep on a couch along with her 3-year-old sister.

Her 18-year-old father, Jovon Johnson, had put Makyla on her stomach on the couch.

Here's the reality: It is not a safe sleep environment for a 9-month-old to be sleeping on her stomach on a couch with a 3-year-old.

Makyla died the day after Milwaukee launched yet another effort to reach the public about the importance of a safe sleep environment for babies.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The night after city officials launched a very public safe sleep campaign, another child died while apparently co-sleeping in Milwaukee.

Nine-month-old Makyla K. Johnson had been sleeping on a sofa with her 3-year-old sister shortly before her father discovered her in distress early Wednesday, according to a Milwaukee County medical examiner's report. It would be at least the ninth case of a child dying in an unsafe sleep environment in the city this year.

...She and her sister had been sleeping on a couch at her parents' apartment in the 3400 block of N. 2nd St. Her father, Jovon Johnson, 18, told investigators he had fed Makyla about 11:15 p.m. and put her on her stomach on the couch she shared with the older girl.

About 11:30 p.m., he joined Makyla's mother, Patrice Gordon, 19, to watch TV in another room. About 12:30 a.m., Gordon's 3-year-old daughter came into the couple's room to ask for a drink. Johnson got up to get the drink and change Makyla's diaper. But when he turned her over, he noticed her eyes were glazed-over. Gordon called 911 shortly before 1 a.m.

Emergency workers arrived and tried to save the child, but she was pronounced dead about 1:30 a.m.

Did Makyla have any underlying medical conditions that may have contributed to her death?

I'm not aware of any information in that regard.

What's certain is that yet another precious life has been lost under unsafe sleep conditions.

When will it end?

When will parents and caregivers be held accountable for putting babies at risk?

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----------------------------

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"Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy."

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"I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acting like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform."

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--BILL MAHER

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"If this was Texas, which is the state that, that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with, you know, with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would say I would have to look twice at this. "But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border. And, um, it just, it doesn't make sense to me that when you google this subject, if you put in 'Arizona S.B. 1070,' that you see a picture of the governor of Arizona meeting with President Obama in May of 2010. If you have direct linkage to the president, there are already National Guard troops on the border in Arizona."

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--KATIE COURIC

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--TOM HANKS

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--ROLAND MARTIN

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--CHUCK SCHUMER

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--ED SCHULTZ

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--JOHN KERRY

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"Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country fails.' I hope his kidneys fail."

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"[Obama] told me I did a great job. The first lady said the same thing. I got a 'well done' from the president, I'm on cloud nine."

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"Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'"

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--BILL MOYERS

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."

--HOWARD DEAN

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--MICHAEL MOORE

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--JOHN KERRY

"F---ing retarded."

"[Republicans] can go f--- themselves!"

--RAHM EMANUEL

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."

--HILLARY CLINTON

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

--BILL CLINTON

"And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."

--MICHELLE OBAMA

"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor."

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"If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill."

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"[F]or most of my lifetime, the United States was such a dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now, because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the United States remains the largest economic and the largest market but there’s real competition out there. And that's potentially healthy. It makes -- Michelle was saying earlier I like tough questions because it keeps me on my toes. Well, this will keep America on its toes."

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"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna PUNISH OUR ENEMIES and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."

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"We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but THEY GOTTA SIT IN BACK."

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"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger."

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"We're buying shrimp, guys."

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"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

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"We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."

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"We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you're providing good service. We don't want people to stop fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy."

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"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

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"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

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"But I -- I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is, we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11."

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"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy CORPSE-MAN Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: 'Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,' she said, 'I will pray for that country.' And in Creole, CORPSE-MAN Brossard responded, 'Etazini.' The United States of America."

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"I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you."

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"We are God's partners in matters of life and death."

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"[T]he Cambridge police acted stupidly."

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"I am going to teach [my daughters] first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

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"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."

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"Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

--BARACK OBAMA

NOTEWORTHY QUOTATIONS

"In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.... [A] democracy without values can lose its very soul."

--POPE BENEDICT XVI

"When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society."

--POPE JOHN PAUL II

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

--MOTHER TERESA

"To promote choice for its own sake is more akin to self-indulgence than self-determination. It is the philosophy of a pre-schooler in a candy shop."

--BRIAN POLLARD, M.D.

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."

--MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."

--RONALD REAGAN

"Liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid."

--MARK LEVIN

"We are Warriors forever."

--BO ELLIS

"I know how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich, you know."

--WARREN ZEVON