Eight dead, 30 hospitalized in human trafficking San Antonio Walmart parking lot tragedy
A Walmart employee, approached by a distraught individual seeking water in the super store’s parking lot on the evening of July 22, contacted police to request a welfare check regarding a parked tractor-trailer on the premises. That welfare check resulted in emergency services having to be called to the scene after 38 people, many in critical condition, were found suffering from various degrees of heat stroke and dehydration in the back of that unrefrigerated truck. Eight of the 38 were pronounced dead at the scene with the remaining 30 having to be hospitalized, according to CNN. A number of young children were among the 38, which police in San Antonio are calling a human trafficking event.
San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood told reporters that fire trucks arrived at 12:26 a.m. to begin the process of extricating the victims from the tractor-trailer. “In a phone interview with CNN later in the morning, Hood said all of the dead were adult males and that some may have suffered brain damage from the intense heat conditions inside the truck,” according to ABC News.
The truck had a refrigeration unit; but that air conditioner was found to be in non-working order. Fire department spokesperson Joe Arrington said that in addition to the eight deceased, 17 of the people found in that truck were hospitalized in critical condition with another 13 hospitalized in serious condition. Police are combing the area searching for anyone who might have left the truck and wandered in the nearby wooded area.
Authorities are reviewing video footage in an effort to determine how long the truck had been parked in the Walmart parking lot. The driver of that truck has been arrested but not yet identified. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said that the driver and anyone else involved with the incident are looking at both state and federal charges. McManus also said, “we’re looking at a human trafficking crime here,” according to ABC News. The chief said that after the survivors of this ordeal have been treated, they will be turned over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
While he called it a “horrific tragedy,” the police chief said the discovery “is not an isolated incident. This happens quite frequently … fortunately there are people who survived, but this happens all the time,” he said. ~ per ABC News
Written by Ace News Today Staff
