Minnesota Vikings football player Adrian Peterson is no stranger to devastation. When he was eight years old, his nine-year-old brother and closest friend, Brian, was riding his bike when a drunk driver hit him. Brian died as a result of a brain injury from the accident. Then in 2007, when Adrian was 21, his brother, Chris, 19, was shot and killed. Now, at the age of 28, Adrian is facing yet another tragedy: his two-year-old son died at the hands of the mother’s boyfriend after being violently shaken. The boy suffered a fatal brain injury.
Peterson recently declared that he would never let his son play football, perhaps because of the staggering number of football players who suffered traumatic brain injuries. Now his son will never have that chance, and a recent statistic shows that brain injury is the number one cause of death and disability for America’s children.
With alarming statistics like this, it stands to reason that our country should have a federal plan for violence against children, which is often the cause of brain injury. We can only hope that justice will be served to the man who is responsible for the death of this innocent child.
