Chicago Sun Times, "Power windows' deadly risk to kids"

Mitchell Johnson was antsy, bored and feeling like he wanted to be just about anywhere but watching his little brother's school musical program. He'd seen the program once already, and being a typical 11-year-old, he just couldn't make it to the end. Wanting to stretch his legs, Mitchell asked his mom if he could grab his basketball out of the car. Once inside the family's 1998 Buick Regal, Mitchell apparently turned on the car radio and started eating sunflower seeds. But as he leaned out the front driver's side window -- possibly to spit out a sunflower seed shell -- Mitchell apparently hit the power window switch. The window quickly rose, and within seconds it was closing around Mitchell's neck.

Shortly after, the school musical ended and Mitchell's mom left the building with the other parents. She froze when she saw her car. There was her Mitchell, her first-born son, his head poking out the window and the glass closed around his neck, his body inside the car, motionless. Sheila Johnson frantically broke a back window and freed her son, but Mitchell couldn't be revived. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Mitchell's asphyxiation death last April in Danville, Ind., was one of the latest in a long string of fatal accidents linked to power windows.