Thursday, September 1, 2011

Yet Another Thing Not to Do On a Ship

Now this was a tour boat, not a cruise ship, but it's still horrifying - why do people do what they do?  The parenthetical comments are mine.

Tour boat passenger tosses boy into water to toughen him up
 
Horrified passengers looked on as a California father told his crying seven-year-old son to “toughen up” and ended up throwing him into the harbor on a tour boat, according to police.

The former Marine sergeant Sloane Briles, 35, was arrested for child endangerment and resisting arrest.

According to police "The father hit him several times and then threatened to throw him overboard if he didn't stop crying  The crowd on the boat became very angry at the father for hitting the kid and extremely angry when he threw him overboard."  (Where was the boat's captain during this abuse?)

The father eventually jumped in after the boy—who was not an expert swimmer—but he had already been rescued. The father become so combative during his arrest that deputies claimed they had to tackle him to the ground. 

The boy was released unharmed into the care of his mother, who divorced Briles in 2007. He was only “roughhousing” with the boy, she told the New York Daily News.   (Who does she think she's kidding?)