A 3-year-old child should be learning his colors and ABC’s, riding a tricycle, and watching cartoons. He should be full of giggles, kisses, and laughter while playing with his brother and mother. He should be sleeping in a warm and safe bed tonight.

Instead, he was cruelly and unmercifully tortured and murdered by the very person who should’ve felt compelled to kill protecting him–his mother. Three-year-old Scotty McMillan died because he was failed by his community. He and his older brother, Ryan, were abused over a 2 week period during which Ryan was not in school. According to the Coatesville Area School District in Coatesville, PA, no one detected any signs that 6-year-old Ryan was being abused. I can’t imagine how he and consequently, his little brother, fell through the cracks.

What’s frustrating in this case is that a third person was also in the home during this horrific murder and because she didn’t feel compelled to help the child, she was also arrested. This woman watched as the child’s mother and her boyfriend kicked, punched, and scourged him. She listened to his little head being banged against the wall as he hung from his feet. She listened to bones breaking. And. She. Did. Nothing. This child (a baby, really) died screaming and crying for his life and NO one heard him– not even the neighbors.

How did we come to live in a society in which everything goes and nothing is questioned or challenged? When will we become bold and brave enough to say “what are you doing?” When do we put an end to co-signing behaviors that are simply wrong?

It’s too late for Scotty. His small broken body now joins those who have died senselessly before him. Oh, and his ‘crime’? Refusal to eat his breakfast.

Read the story HERE.