10 Die in Trailer in Latest Human Trafficking Incident

Now infamous reefer trailer stopped in a parking lot in San Antonio. There, close to 100 illegal aliens were discovered inside and rescued. Ten died from the heat insiide. Images from CBS and NBC news reports. 

The news from Texas on Sunday was disturbing. As many as 100 illegal immigrants desperate to get into the U.S. rode inside a sweltering semi-trailer for about 160 miles from Laredo to San Antonio, until discovered and rescued when the truck stopped at a Walmart store. Ten of them died of heat stroke, apparently, and many others are still hospitalized. The callousness of the “coyotes” who locked them in there, with or without the knowledge of the truck driver, is disgusting.

Because I do this blog each week, I quickly focused on the equipment -- not so much the tractor, which appears to be a customized Freightliner FLD Classic, but the trailer: What kind, who owns it, why was it going down the road with no cargo but humans suffering from heat and lack of water?

The arrested driver, owner-operator James Bradley Jr. of Florida, told police that the trailer's owner, Pyle Transportation in Iowa, hired him to deliver the trailer to Brownsville, TX, where a new owner was to pick it up (the firm's president corroborated that to a Des Moines TV news reporter). Bradley said he had gone to Laredo to have his tractor washed and detailed. If so, why didn't he go straight to Brownsville to deliver the trailer?

Bradley said he didn't know anyone was aboard until he stopped at that Walmart in San Antonio and heard noise from inside. He opened the doors and “Spanish people” began climbing out, knocking him to the ground in their terrified haste. It turns out that Bradley has a criminal record going back ...Read the rest of this story

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