A southeast Texas nonprofit leader is calling for compassion — and accountability — after a homeless man was found dead outside a convenience store, seated in his wheelchair and wearing a hospital gown in below-freezing weather.
“Oh my God, like why didn’t someone have enough compassion?” said Patricia Henderson, director of the Port Cities Rescue Mission, in an interview with CBS affiliate KFDM following the death of 61-year-old James Rouly in Port Arthur last week.
Henderson said the situation reflects a broader failure to look out for one another. “That is what’s wrong with the world right now. People don’t have compassion for another human being,” she said, adding, “Someone, anyone could have dropped him off. We have shelters open, so things like that [do] not happen here.”
Rouly was found in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Jan. 27, near a dumpster outside a business at Turtle Creek Drive and 9th Avenue, according to ABC affiliate KBMT and FOX affiliate KBTV. Reports said he was wearing a hospital gown and still had a wristband.
Temperatures were in the low 20s that morning when a local resident noticed him while driving by.
“I touched him and it appeared he was dead,” Daniel December told KBMT. “He had a hospital blanket but no shoes. He appeared to only have a hospital gown and some KFC. He had a drink and it was frozen. I called police right away.”
Justice of the Peace Joseph Guillory II confirmed that the victim was Rouly, who had no address and was homeless. Guillory said it appears the 61-year-old may have been released from the hospital the day before. An autopsy has been ordered.
The Port Arthur Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rouly’s death comes as severe winter weather has pushed freezing temperatures, ice, and snow across parts of the country — conditions that have been linked to multiple storm-related deaths. In Port Arthur, city officials issued a “Declaration of Disaster” on Saturday, Jan. 24, due to Winter Storm Fern, according to a statement from the city.
The declaration said that, as of Saturday, Port Arthur “is under an imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from freezing weather and icy conditions…”
The dangerous conditions led shelters — including Port Cities Rescue Mission — to open their doors to people with nowhere else to go.
“My thing is that we’re here. We are available. Please don’t let someone stay out in the cold when they could come,” Henderson told KFDM.
She said the organization has more than 30 beds available for those in need. “Even though it’s… a temporary situation, the situation is that they don’t freeze to death outside in the cold weather,” Henderson said.
