HIALEAH, FLA. (WSVN) - Residents of a neighborhood in Hialeah are voicing their concerns amid fears a container in the parking lot of a local funeral home is being used to store bodies of patients who died of coronavirus.
Residents of the Los Portales community staged a demonstration on Sunday after the refrigerated container showed up along their fence last week.
7News cameras captured protesters holding signs as drivers passing by honked their horns.
“We can’t sleep right just thinking that that’s there,” said area resident Liliana Acosta. “It is affecting us psychologically.”
That container sits behind San Jose Funeral Home off East Fourth Avenue in Hialeah. The business butts up to Los Portales.
Acosta and her neighbors fear it’s being used to store deceased COVID-19 patients.
”We don’t know enough about COVID. I have kids. I don’t know if that’s safe for them to be outside,” she said.
Now, Acosta is worried for her loved ones and neighbors.
“It is a foot and a half away from my fence,” she said.
“Put it in a parking lot in the hospital, not in the neighborhood,” said area resident Jose Abril.
The funeral home said that container is in the parking lot for capacity reasons. A spokesperson issued a statement to 7News that reads in part:
“It is vital for our neighbors and all in the community to know that there is absolutely NO RISK of any kind to them or to our community. We brought in a special care facility that is designed for crises like these and added extra protections to ensure the safety, well-being and privacy of not only the deceased, but our neighbors.”
Hialeah Police were seen at the site on Sunday.
Sunday’s protest took place hours after the Florida Department of Health reported another 9,344 cases throughout the state. About 2,900 of those cases are in Miami-Dade County, 1,163 in Broward and 12 in Monroe.
Seventy-seven deaths are also being reported, and the statewide positivity rate stands at just over 11%.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the city will now be focusing on enforcement of COVID rules like the mask mandate.
“We’re starting to see improvement on what is the growth rate,” he said. “We’re still way, way too high in terms of our base line.”
This week alone, Suarez said, hundreds of violation tickets have been handed out.
“Both the Miami-Dade County Police Department and the City of Miami have been out there issuing tickets all week,” he said. “We created a special task force just for that.”
Sunday morning, Lauderhill Police Officer Corey Pendergrass died from complications related to COVID-19. He served on the force for over 20 years.
Pendergrass’ fellow first responders escorted him from Plantation General Hospital to a funeral home in Pompano Beach.
This past week, five new COVID-19 testing sites opened across South Florida. For more information, click here.
Anyone with questions and concerns about the coronavirus can call the Florida Department of Health’s 24-hour hotline at 1-866-779-6121.
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