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.
          An automotive convenience that most people wouldn't consider dangerous, power windows have been blamed for at least 28 deaths since 1990, most of them children ages 3 and younger. Hundreds more are injured each year in power window accidents, including kids who have lost fingers or suffered crushed wrists or hands after the windows quickly zoomed up, exerting forces of up to 80 pounds in a matter of seconds, according to reports compiled by Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based advocacy organization.
          Now, a coalition of consumer groups is petitioning the federal government to strengthen the safety requirements for power windows on vehicles sold in the United States. They say many accidents could have been prevented by inexpensive safety features that are required by law on cars sold in Europe but left off many of the models sold in the United States.