Tanya Lozano says authorities need to step up the search for a man who was reported missing Tuesday morning in Lake Michigan.
Lozano identified the man as 38-year-old Bryan Jackson, the father of her two children — Bryan Jr., 6, and Apollonia, 10.
The missing person, who authorities haven’t identified, jumped off a boat about a mile off shore near the 31st Street Harbor Tuesday morning, according to Chicago fire and police officials.
Lozano, a community leader and activist who often works with public radio station WBEZ, said Jackson was on a boat with another man and two women. She said Jackson and one of the women jumped overboard for a swim around 7 a.m., while the other two were in the boat’s cabin.
When the two emerged from the cabin, Jackson and the woman weren’t there, Lozano said.
The boat owner found the woman about 15 minutes later, but they never found Jackson, who Lozano said is an “extremely fit” and athletic man who played college and semi-pro football and trains professional athletes.
Officials responded to the area about 9 a.m. and began a rescue effort. About 10:30 a.m., the Chicago Fire Department said the swimmer had not been found and that the status of the search was changed to a recovery effort. Fire officials also said the effort was being turned over to police and the U.S. Coast Guard.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard District 9, which covers the Great Lakes region, said the agency assisted Chicago fire and police officials Tuesday morning but suspended its effort by Tuesday afternoon, turning the search back over to the fire and police departments.
Chicago police said the department’s Marine Unit “continues their search” as of Wednesday afternoon and that no other information was available.
A spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department couldn’t be reached for comment.
“I just think it’s necessary to know that there’s a chance that this man survived, and he needs urgent care and needs to be found,” Lozano said. “It’s been less than 48 hours and the search is just not really a search, and they’ve already considered him drowned, dead.”
Lozano said she and a group went to the 31st Street Harbor and informed boaters to look for a missing swimmer. She also said workers at the harbor were unaware that a search-and-rescue effort had been underway.
“His life matters, and he should be given the same energy to be found that they would give anybody else,” Lozano said. “We need people out there looking for themselves. We need everyone who has a boat that’s out there to look around; anybody who lives by where the lake meets land, they need to look over there.”
