I.D. Made On 19-Year-Old Drowned in Prospect Park Lake

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Police have identified the 19-year-old who drowned in Prospect Park Lake on Jan. 2 as James O'Keefe, but a spokeswoman declined to provide O'Keefe's address, citing a request for privacy from his family.

On Tuesday, an NYPD spokesperson told Patch that the dead teen hadn't been publicly identified. However, on Wednesday, a separate spokesperson said she checked NYPD files and subsequently provided O'Keefe's name.

A web search then revealed that the identification had been reported in early January by community news website Bklyner. The site also reported that O'Keefe was a Brooklyn resident, though the NYPD wouldn't confirm that to Patch.

The NYPD spokesperson said Wednesday that no criminality is suspected in O'Keefe's death, and that the cause of death remains under investigation. On Tuesday, Dr. Jason Graham, a spokesperson for the Medical Examiner's Office, said that "the cause and the manner of death in this case are both pending further studies," adding that, "there's additional testing that has to be done."

Pictured at top: Prospect Park Lake. Image via Google Maps.