The family of a 3-year-old victim of apparent child abuse in Denver is trying to raise enough money to bring his body home to Colorado.
Jonathan “J.J.” Munoz-Bilbrey had just moved to Joplin, Missouri, with his mother, Natasha Bilbrey, and his 2-year-old sister a few months ago.
Last weekend, J.J. was taken to a hospital in critical condition. His health was so poor, he had to be airlifted to a larger hospital in Kansas City, Missouri.
Police said that his injuries are the result of child abuse at the hand of his mother’s boyfriend, 21-year-old Lenard Valdez.
J.J. was declared dead at the hospital at 2:37 p.m. on Sunday.
“Our Jonathan was lost in a senseless act of violence contrary to the life Jonathan lived,” his aunt Shawntell Byrnes said during a vigil Tuesday night.
Family, friends and neighbors gathered to share memories and light candles for the boy they say was the light of their lives.
“He was amazing. Just the brightest kid,” Byrnes said.
The boy’s family describes him as a happy, healthy, typical 3-year-old boy. He will be remembered for making people laugh, his love of corn and rice, and for his infectious smile.
“He was just the sweetest boy that you’ll ever know. It’s so untrue that he is not even going to be with us any longer,” a neighbor said.
The family is trying their best to get his body home to Colorado. Right now, he is undergoing an autopsy in Kansas City.
After the boy’s remains are released, his family wants to have a funeral, but transporting his body will cost around $7,000.
“He needs to be home. He’s not from Joplin, Missouri. He’s not and he doesn’t belong there,” Byrnes said. “We need him home now.”
Valdez is in custody in Missouri and it is unclear what charges he is facing.
YouTube Cracks Down On Creepy Childrens Videos
YouTube has been forced into action after its Kids app has become inundated with disturbing videos masked as kid-friendly.
YouTube Kids was once a family friendly place for children to watch age-appropriate videos without parental consent. It has been successful for the most part but recently has seen a rise in disconcerting videos aimed at children.
Back in March, CafeMom published an article about the disturbing trend popping up on YouTube. People were publishing videos using popular characters like Peppa Pig and Thomas the Tank Engine to draw children’s attention. However, the videos turned out to be perverse with the characters engaging in violent and scary behavior for children to be watching.The videos in question used the popular children’s characters and saw them being tortured or turned them into monsters. For example, one particular video saw poor Peppa Pig having all her teeth pulled out from a scary dentist.
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These videos are clearly designed to scare and horrify children and parents alike. However, in a small consolation to parents, most of these videos are not heavily laden with curse words and thankfully don’t use inappropriate sexual content.
This is why the videos have not been previously deemed or flagged as inappropriate, until now. YouTube announced last week that it was putting plans in place to prevent children from watching disturbing or inappropriate content.
Juniper Downs, YouTube’s director of policy released a statement saying “Earlier this year, we updated our policies to make content featuring inappropriate use of family entertainment characters ineligible for monetisation. We’re in the process of implementing a new policy that age restricts this content in the YouTube main app when flagged. Age-restricted content is automatically not allowed in YouTube Kids. The YouTube team is made up of parents who are committed to improving our apps and getting this right.”
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YouTube claims it has been working on the age restriction policy change since before it was accused of infrastructural violence against minors, however, the Guardian believes they are acting as a direct result of the backlash they faced for letting the videos appear on the child-friendly app.
Cnet.com released some very useful tips for parents to help them protect their children from these random weird videos. They advise parents to turn off the search settings, set up a password to prevent children changing these settings themselves, report and block any questionable videos or perhaps switch to a different app like Nick Jr. or Netflix.
You can check out their full list of suggestions here: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-make-youtube-kids-safer-for-your-children/