Los Angeles firefighters pulled a body from the lake at Hollenbeck Park in Boyle Heights on Thursday morning, and investigators say they have not yet determined how the person ended up in the water. The Los Angeles Fire Department received the call around 10:39 a.m. and was sent to the 2000 block of Hollenbeck Drive, where the park sits alongside the 10 Freeway east of the East L.A. interchange.
Emergency crews responded to reports of a body in the lake, according to KTLA. Fire department crews worked to recover the body from the water, per a department spokesperson cited by the station, and the remains were covered with a white sheet once removed from the lake. KTLA's Sky5 was over the scene just before 11:30 a.m. Thursday as the recovery unfolded.
A department spokesperson could not provide further details about the person's identity, and investigators had not determined whether foul play was involved as of Thursday. The station's report notes that how the person came to be in the water remains unclear.
A Park Long Shaped by Freeways and Water Troubles
Hollenbeck Park is an 18.3-acre city facility built around a 4.3-acre manmade lake that serves roughly 13,715 residents within a half-mile walk, according to the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. The park dates to 1892, but construction of Interstate 5 and Interstate 10 during the late 1950s and 1960s cut directly through the grounds, placing concrete freeway support pillars into the lake despite a 15,000-signature neighborhood protest petition, as detailed by the Los Angeles Times.
The lake has also long struggled with water quality, historically receiving untreated stormwater and sediment runoff directly from the adjacent freeway, per LA Sanitation. That runoff, along with perimeter erosion threatening nearby walkways, prompted Los Angeles officials to announce $25 million in state funding in April 2023 to dredge the lake and improve drainage, as reported by Boyle Heights Beat. Separately, StreetsLA managed a $4.9 million Clean California Grant project completed in summer 2025 that added 200 new trees, 59 pedestrian security lights, ADA curb ramps, and 14,900 square feet of new sidewalks in and around the park.
Not the First Body Pulled From the Lake
Thursday's recovery is not the first time a body has been found in the Hollenbeck Park lake. In 2012, the bodies of two separate individuals were discovered floating in the lake, according to LA Weekly's historical reporting. And in March 2014, the body of 36-year-old unhoused mother Lorenza Arellano was recovered from the same lake, a death that KQED reported galvanized community organizing and directly led to the opening of East Los Angeles' Guadalupe Homeless Project Women's Shelter. Arellano had been staying outdoors near the park before she died.
The park has also seen recent city intervention around its unhoused population. In May 2026, Mayor Karen Bass conducted an Inside Safe encampment resolution operation in Boyle Heights that moved more than 35 unhoused individuals off the streets near Hollenbeck Park and the Sixth Street Bridge and into interim housing, according to the Office of Mayor Karen Bass. Hoodline previously reported on neighbors alarmed by encampments near the park earlier this year.
What Happens Next
The LAPD's Hollenbeck Division, which oversees public safety across 15.2 square miles encompassing Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, and El Sereno for roughly 200,000 residents, handles patrol and initial crime scene containment in cases like this one. Because the person was recovered from a public body of water with no immediate cause of death, the County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner will conduct a complete forensic autopsy, toxicological screening, and tissue analysis to establish the exact cause and manner of death, per standard county protocol.
For now, the person's identity has not been released, and whether the death resulted from accidental drowning, a medical emergency, or something else remains unresolved. Investigators have given no timeline for when those answers might come.
