Gail Delaughter/Houston Public Media
The Houston Police Division is looking out the White Oak Bayou for a physique after a name got here in earlier Wednesday morning reporting a drowned particular person. If discovered, that will be the seventh such dying within the span of a few month.
As of Wednesday morning, a spokesperson from the Houston Police Division stated that the physique had not been recovered but, although police are on scene and looking out at White Oak Drive and Taylor Road, simply north of I-10. The preliminary name, which got here in at about 8:15, was for a attainable drowning, in accordance with the spokesperson.
If such a physique is recovered, it will mark the seventh such restoration since a College of Houston pupil was discovered within the Brays Bayou on Sept. 15.
Within the 5 days after that pupil, Jade McKissic, was discovered, 4 different our bodies have been recovered from the Greens, White Oak, and Buffalo Bayous. An extra sixth physique was discovered late at evening on Sept. 25.
To date this yr, 15 our bodies have been discovered, in accordance with police. Final yr, 26 our bodies have been recovered from the bayous, in accordance with Houston Mayor John Whitmire.
Houston Police and metropolis officers, together with Whitmire, have repeatedly pressured that there isn’t a credibility to the social media theories of the deaths being related or that there could also be a serial killer in Houston.
The latest deaths have prompted questions on security measures close to bayous within the Houston space, the place there are greater than 2,500 miles of waterways, in accordance with the Houston Parks Board. The nonprofit manages hike-and-bike trails alongside lots of the bayous, that are managed by the Harris County Flood Management District.
Metropolis of Houston leaders mentioned the problem throughout a metropolis council assembly this week, however expressed skepticism concerning the want and potential effectiveness of bodily limitations corresponding to fencing. They stated alcohol, psychological well being and homelessness might be contributing components to the latest deaths.
“I’m at all times keen to take heed to the options that could be out there, however I simply don’t know the way we are able to cease folks’s our bodies ending up within the bayou, or folks being killed every day, aside from making an attempt to get a mindset of individuals to vary these behaviors,” Houston Metropolis Council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz stated final month.
