MELBOURNE — A dad fell asleep in a hotel pool in Florida while his 3-year-old son drowned next to him for more than 20 minutes and died, police said.
A housekeeper spotted the boy and pulled him out, but it was too late, and he was pronounced dead at a hospital that same day, according to the Palm Bay Police Department.
Now, 40-year-old Sharef Omar Smith of Georgia is charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child, according to Brevard County court records.
Smith was staying at a Melbourne hotel with his son, stepson and the child’s mother, police wrote in an arrest affidavit.
The mom was away from the hotel when she said Smith called her and asked her where their son’s bathing suit was, according to officers. She told him not to take the child to the pool because she felt he was “irresponsible,” then he hung up on her, investigators said.
He took the child to the pool anyway and fell asleep on the steps leading into the water, according to police.
A housekeeper told investigators she was cleaning a room on the third floor when she looked outside and saw a child floating in the deep end of the pool, according to the affidavit. The only other person at the pool was Smith, she said.
She told officers she ran down and was yelling at Smith to grab the child, but he didn’t wake up, so she pulled the boy out of the pool herself, noting he appeared “lifeless,” police said.
She didn’t know how to perform CPR, so she started pounding his chest and trying to open his mouth while screaming at the dad, until he eventually woke up, officers said.
She said he just stood there not helping her while she repeatedly yelled at him, then he started swearing at her, according to investigators.
More staff members came outside, and they called 911 and helped provide first aid until paramedics arrived, police said.
“As the defendant later walked through the lobby of the hotel, he continued yelling at the staff, calling them names and raising his middle finger at them,” officers wrote in the report.
The housekeeper said she saw a small bottle of wine in Smith’s bag, and a drug recognition expert from the police department noted he smelled like alcohol, according to police.
At the hospital, Smith continued to act aggressive and refused to cooperate, one time putting his hand up to an officer to “dismiss” him, police said.
He called the child’s mother to tell her about the drowning, but she said he wouldn’t give her any details. Officers overheard their phone conversation in which she accused him of being “drunk again,” according to investigators.
Police said surveillance footage showed the child was drowning for 20 to 23 minutes while the dad was asleep in the pool.
The child was pronounced dead about 12 hours after the incident, according to officers.
Investigators said Smith also had a DUI arrest warrant out of Georgia.
Melbourne is on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, about a 70-mile drive southeast from Orlando.
By OLIVIA LLOYD/McClatchy News
Olivia Lloyd is a National Real-Time Reporter for McClatchy covering the Southeast. She is based in South Florida and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Previously, she has worked for Hearst DevHub and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
