Authorities were called to a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas, who found eight people dead and 20 others in very critical conditions in the back of a humid tractor-trailer. This was an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong, victims of the incident told police Sunday. However, police are investigating where the immigrants were from.
The incident came to be after a person from the truck came to contact with a Walmart employee in the parking lot, asking for water late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, Police Chief William McManus said (The Province. July 23, 2017). After giving water, the employee then called police, who found the other dead and desperate inside the trailer. Some of those in the trailer ran off into the …show more content…
(July 23, 2017) reported that authorities did not know how long the trailer was parked at Walmart, but they are reviewing surveillance video. "With heat strokes or heat injuries, a lot of them are going to have irreversible brain damage.", San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said. The trailer did have an air conditioner, but it did not work. San Antonio on Saturday was 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). The youngest of the victims hospitalized are 15 years old, the fire spokesman said.
However, according to Fox News (July 23, 2017), the man connected to the human trafficking case is expected to be charged. Sixty year old James Mathew Bradley Jr., from Clearwater, Florida, is due in court Monday after being taken into custody, U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr. said. It is still not clear whether Bradley was the driver of the truck, even though investigators told media earlier that the driver was already in custody. Surveillance video seen by police showed a "number of vehicles" taking people who survived the trip. Police are prompting to do search in the area after many people fled the …show more content…
The latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end in a tragedy, the worst case in U.S. history was when 19 immigrants were found dead locked inside a breathless trailer in Victoria, Texas, in May 2003. Four truck seizures have been reported this month around Laredo, Texas. Mexican authorities have also made numerous discoveries in the past
The incident came to be after a person from the truck came to contact with a Walmart employee in the parking lot, asking for water late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, Police Chief William McManus said (The Province. July 23, 2017). After giving water, the employee then called police, who found the other dead and desperate inside the trailer. Some of those in the trailer ran off into the …show more content…
(July 23, 2017) reported that authorities did not know how long the trailer was parked at Walmart, but they are reviewing surveillance video. "With heat strokes or heat injuries, a lot of them are going to have irreversible brain damage.", San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said. The trailer did have an air conditioner, but it did not work. San Antonio on Saturday was 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). The youngest of the victims hospitalized are 15 years old, the fire spokesman said.
However, according to Fox News (July 23, 2017), the man connected to the human trafficking case is expected to be charged. Sixty year old James Mathew Bradley Jr., from Clearwater, Florida, is due in court Monday after being taken into custody, U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr. said. It is still not clear whether Bradley was the driver of the truck, even though investigators told media earlier that the driver was already in custody. Surveillance video seen by police showed a "number of vehicles" taking people who survived the trip. Police are prompting to do search in the area after many people fled the …show more content…
The latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end in a tragedy, the worst case in U.S. history was when 19 immigrants were found dead locked inside a breathless trailer in Victoria, Texas, in May 2003. Four truck seizures have been reported this month around Laredo, Texas. Mexican authorities have also made numerous discoveries in the past