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| Robert Hunter Jr, 21 |
A tenant entering the sprawling industrial complex at Bailey Avenue
and Broadway spotted the body lying on the ground near the building at
about 6 a.m. Thursday and called police.
Ronald Hunter Jr. was dead.
The temperature overnight had been 2 degrees, and a stiff wind took the wind chill to nearly 20 degrees below zero.
But
the 21-year-old Hunter, who was homeless and mentally ill, had
discarded his jacket and attempted to remove his shirt before he died,
police said.
In the most severe cases of hypothermia, medical
experts say, individuals have been known to undress when they become
disoriented and think they are overheating as their blood vessels
constrict.
Hunter’s 6-foot, 3-inch, 150-pound body was unable to
produce heat quickly enough to replenish the warmth lost to the bitter
cold and harsh winds.
“There was no foul play. Hypothermia caused
the death,” said Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda, confirming an Erie
County Medical Examiner’s autopsy.
Hunter’s death highlights just
how at risk the homeless – especially those who are mentally ill – are
in winter weather as severe as that which occurred during the past week,
according to workers and volunteers who assist them. Some homeless
people lack the ability to know when it is time to come in from the
cold.
“On nights when it is declared a Code Blue, with
temperatures below 15 degrees, we go out in a van trying to bring the
homeless to shelters,” said Aubrey Pula, program manager at Harbor
House, a downtown drop-in center where Hunter sometimes spent the night,
pacing the floor and staying to himself.
“Some refuse us, and we give them food and blankets,” she said.
A
surveillance video camera at the Acme Business Park captured Hunter’s
final moments overnight Wednesday as he wandered into a desolate section
at the north end of the business park – a massive, subdivided one-story
structure with several tenants, ranging from Catholic Charities to an
auto parts manufacturer. Authorities told Hunter’s family what was on
the tape.
“He kept falling down and getting up,” said Ronald
Hunter Sr. “It looked like he was trying to make his way to the building
to maybe try and get inside, but he never made it. He was wandering
around back there for some time.”
Hunter’s father went to the spot where his son died.
“I
went Thursday evening, and the snow had been plowed away,” he said of
the parking lot that rolls up to loading docks at the back of the
complex, which is not far from a Bailey Avenue bridge over railroad
tracks, north of where Bailey intersects Broadway.
“He was way,
way in the back in that parking lot,” the father said of where his son
collapsed and died. “I still hope the police continue their
investigation. I have questions and I don’t think everything is known.”
‘I’m hearing voices’
The path to Ronald Hunter Jr.’s death began several years ago, when
he started acting strangely and became alienated from those who loved
him most, relatives said.
“When he was living with us, I found him
curled up in a ball in the corner of a bedroom, and I said, ‘What’s
wrong, baby?’ ” his father recalled.
“I’m hearing voices telling me to kill myself,” his son told him.
“We called Crisis Services, and they evaluated him,” his father said.
It was determined that the younger Hunter suffered from schizophrenia and behavioral disorders.
“But because he was 18, it was up to him if he wanted help,” said Sharon Hunter, his stepmother.
The elder Hunter said his son sought help from time to time from a mental health services provider but did not stick with it.
And his mental illness worsened in recent years, said his mother, Donna McNally.
“He began to have outbursts,” she said.
But her son, the youngest of seven children, could be the most gentle and loving person when he was calm, McNally said.
As
a boy, Hunter attended Lincoln Academy grammar school. As a teenager,
he went to Burgard High School, although he quit before graduating.
The last time his mother saw him was on New Year’s Eve, when Ronald Hunter Sr. drove him to her home in the Town of Tonawanda.
“He came in and said, ‘Mom, I love you,’ ” McNally recalled. “I said, ‘I love you, Ronald.’ ”
“We hugged and then he left.”
Ronald
Hunter Sr. had driven his son to her home after picking him up at Erie
County Medical Center, where the young man had spent two days in the
psychiatric unit after police took him there following a disturbance at a
West Side convenience store.
At about 10 a.m. Wednesday, the father said, he drove his son and a long-time friend to downtown Buffalo.
“Ronald
was going to live with his friend, and he wanted to apply for cash to
help with the rent. They were going to try and make ends meet by living
together. I dropped Ronald off at Social Services,” the father said.
And that was the last time he saw his son.
Help at Harbor House
Staff members and residents at Harbor House, where Hunter sometimes stayed, recalled that Hunter kept to himself.
“He’d
pace the floor, but he didn’t bother anybody,” said 57-year-old Eugene
Jones, who has been homeless since he was evicted from his apartment
after ownership of the building changed hands six months ago. “Ronald
didn’t go wild like some people do.”
Thomas Kissell said he could
relate to what Hunter had gone through. He, too, knows what it is like
to be out in the extreme cold, saying he almost died Friday morning.
“I’d
gone to the emergency room at Erie County Medical Center because my
legs were swelling up and I didn’t feel well. I was released at 2 a.m.,”
the 50-year-old Kissell said, showing hospital discharge papers. “I
walked all the way here,” he said of the Harbor House facility on the
200 block of Genesee Street.
“It took me hours, almost till dawn. I knew if I stopped I’d freeze to death.”
Kissell pulled up his pant leg to reveal his bloated right calf.
“Look at how my leg is swollen,” he said. “Both my legs are swollen to the knees.”
A bottle of Brisk iced tea-lemonade in a side pocket of his knapsack was no longer liquid, but slush.
On the edge
On Wednesday, the day before Ronald Hunter Jr.’s body was found,
Buffalo recorded the most frigid temperatures and negative wind chills
of the week, according to National Weather Service data. Just before 9
that night, the temperature dropped to 2 degrees, while the wind chill
dipped to minus 18 degrees.
The low temperatures for the entire
week only exceeded single digits once, and the brutal wind chills
continued into Thursday morning.
Where are the homeless to find
shelter? Harbor House, which describes its operations as a “night-time
drop-in center,” is open year-round. The Buffalo City Mission and St.
Luke’s Mission of Mercy also offer shelter to the homeless.
The
stories of the homeless who find shelter at Harbor House show how close
they live to the edge of life, said Michael Broadus, who works at the
facility, which specializes in assisting the mentally ill.
“If I were homeless, I’d hope that someone would be there for me,” Broadus said.
Harbor House’s Pula offered condolences to the Hunter family from the staff and those they serve.
“Our hearts and thoughts are with the family,” she said.
She
then went out Friday night, on the fifth consecutive Code Blue effort
of the week, to gather homeless from the streets and take them back to
Harbor House.
“They’re really good people, even the ones that do bad things,” she said. “Once you talk with them, you see how good they are.”
