Dispatch was informed Forte had been found in a nearby retention pond while officers were enroute to the scene.
Though officers arrived within minutes and began life-saving efforts, Forte was pronounced dead at the scene.
“This is an incredible tragedy for our community so soon after we lost a child in similar circumstances,” Lisa Brown, township administrator, said.
Last week in Morgan Twp., a 7-year-old boy died Wednesday after he didn’t resurface while swimming in a private pool with other children in Butler County.
According to the sheriff’s office, witnesses said the boy had been swimming with other children under adult supervision.
The Hamilton County coroner identified the child as Ian J. Pequignot.
The incident remains under investigation.
In November, 6-year-old Joshua Al-Lateef Jr., an autistic child, went missing from his West Chester Twp. home at the Lakefront apartments, and was found 28 hours later in a retention pond on Wyndtree Drive. There are several ponds within the 30-plus-building complex.
Journal-News reported last week about a Cincinnati organization working to make sure children, especially those with autism, are protected from retention ponds and basins near their homes.
Leslie Williams, board president for EmPath for Autism, said the organization she co-founded is drafting legislation and will shop it to lawmakers that would require fencing to be installed around these man-made bodies of water in neighborhoods and apartment complexes.
This would be a huge undertaking for communities with new subdivisions in counties like Warren and Butler that use retentions ponds in new development.
Bodies of water, like ponds, do attract people, but those with autism they “often exhibit a strong fascination and attraction to water that goes beyond what the rest of us may experience,” according to report on the Autism Society of Florida.
There are no uniform fencing requirements in Butler County for retention ponds, unlike the rules for pools.
Williams said she had reached out to some lawmakers to discuss the issue, and plans to contact more to “have some sort of safeguard around these detention ponds, so this doesn’t happen anymore, is all we’re looking for.”
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