Father charged in death of son

BURLINGTON — A Burlington father is facing charges after the death of his three-year-old son, who was pulled from a hot car last week.

Halton police received a 911 call from a “hysterical” man around 5:30 p.m. on May 23 after the toddler’s lifeless body was found in the back of a grey Ford Escape.

The SUV was parked in the lot behind Crossroads Christian Communications, 1295 North Service Rd., near Kerns Road, in Burlington. Despite resuscitative efforts, the boy was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said last week that preliminary results from an autopsy conducted in Toronto the following day found the child died of hyperthermia, consistent with being left in a hot car for an extended period of time.

Temperatures in Burlington reached a high of 26 C that day, according to Environment Canada.

Shaun Pennell, 37, is charged with criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide the necessities of life. Police said Pennell was released on a promise to appear. He is scheduled to appear in Milton Court on June 27.

A man named Shaun Pennell is the co-founder of collaborative workspace Halton HiVE. The co-working space for IT professionals, entrepreneurs and startups moved into the building at 1295 North Service Rd. earlier this year.

Crossroads no longer owns the building. It was sold to a numbered Ontario company in March. Crossroads’ flagship show 100 Huntley Street opened the show last Thursday — the day after the boy died — with an emo- tional call for mourning and prayer.

“This was a child whose family is a precious part of the team of our building owner, a family who is in deep pain right now as they mourn the loss of their young son,” said a visibly shaken Cheryl Weber, a host of the show.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning article published in the Washington Post in 2009, “Fatal Distraction, “recounted the heartbreaking stories of seemingly ordinary people who had accidentally killed their babies.

“‘Death by hyperthermia’ is the official designation. When it happens to young children, the facts are often the same: An otherwise loving and attentive parent one day gets busy, or distracted, or upset, or confused by a change in his or her daily routine, and just ... forgets a child is in the car,” the Gene Weingarten story reads.