FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A body was found floating in a lake Tuesday morning at a Fort Lauderdale high school.
The body of a man could be seen floating facedown in the water on the campus of Dillard High School.
“The bus driver, after she dropped off the children, as she was exiting, noticed the body floating in the water and notified police," Fort Lauderdale police Detective Tracy Figone said.
Figone said the school remained open.
As the body was rolled off to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy, police tried to figure out if it was a homicide, suicide or a death by natural causes.
Investigators said it’s too early to tell whether foul play was involved.
“I was shocked because I’m like, why would there be a dead body in the lake over here? And I don’t know, we was on break and stuff so I’m, like, wondering how would somebody get in the school?” student Mikey Calixte said.
Calixte told Local 10 News reporter Madeleine Wright that he overslept and had to stand outside the school and wait to get in.
Cathleen Brennan, a spokeswoman for Broward County Public Schools, said the campus was placed on lockdown as a precaution.
“I think it’s sad, like, for somebody to die and lose their life,” Calixte said.
About a dozen people stood outside the fence watching police walk around the lake.
Some of them were worried the victim is someone they know.
“I got a nephew out here. I’m just praying that it’s not him,” one man said.
The medical examiner’s office will determine the man’s cause of death.