Dozens of people were found inside a Tractor Trailer over the weekend outside a Walmart store. According to police, these people are immigrants and were victims of human trafficking.
A total of ten people were confirmed dead as of Monday morning. More than two dozen people remain in the hospital and are being treated, most of them due to dehydration and heat stroke. My San Antonio reported that eight were initially found dead inside the tractor trailer and one died by Sunday. The death toll rose to ten on Monday. According to CBS News, there were more than 100 travelers who joined the trip.
Most of the victims are males, and all those who died are adult males.
Those who died were not identified by authorities yet. It is believed that they died from heat exposure. The official cause of death will be released by the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office soon. Authorities do not know yet where these people are from as well as their ages. The youngest is said to be 15-years-old.
Driver arrested
The driver of the tractor trailer, identified as James M. Bradley Jr., 60-years-old of Florida, was arrested and taken into custody. He was booked into a federal jail in San Antonio. His role in the Human Trafficking event that went wrong remains unknown.
The tractor trailer was parked at the Walmart parking lot located at 8538 S.
Interstate 35 and Texas 16. The truck had been parked there since Saturday evening, and when authorities checked, the air conditioning was not working. It is believed that the temperature reached 115 degrees inside the vehicle.
According to San Antonio Police Chief William McManus, a Walmart employee alerted officials after someone from the truck asked the employee for water.
By 12:26 a.m. on Sunday, firefighters came and started to remove people from the back of the tractor trailer.
Other smuggling operations in the past weeks
Border Patrol agents said that on June 19, police stopped an 18-wheeler truck. They discovered 44 people inside it who are from Mexico and Guatemala. On July 7, a locked trailer was found by authorities, and 72 people from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico were discovered.
Last week, Border Patrol agents at the checkpoint found 16 people being transported inside a locked trailer.
Authorities said they hope they would find more people to charge regarding the latest human trafficking attempt in Texas. The exact charges leveled against the driver remained unknown.
