A Florida man was arrested after police said he dropped a 4-year-old boy off of a second-floor balcony at a Daytona Beach resort on Saturday.
Brandon Gilmore, 31, has been charged with aggravated child abuse, a felony, according to WFTV.
Police said Gilmore told them he had met the boy’s mother five hours earlier, and they had talked about getting a piercing later in the day.
Police said that prior to the incident, he told the boy’s mother that he would take the boy outside to play and to “scare him a little bit.”
Florida Man Charged With Dropping 4-Year-Old Off Balcony Said He Wanted To ‘Scare Him A Little’ https://t.co/zPdS9EBbGN 🔗
— Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) July 9, 2024
Gilmore said he held the child by his legs directly above the balcony.
“He was just like swinging in, playing with them,” witness Dasanni Bentley said, according to WESH.
“And then he let him go, and he had him by one foot. And then the kid slipped right out of him and fell directly on his head on the concrete, no grass,” she said.
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After the boy landed, “his face started turning bright purple,” Bentley said.
She said Gilmore and the child’s mother ran down to pick up the child and take him back to his mother’s room.
“They were just all down like all around him, trying to make sure he was OK,” she said. “People were screaming from the pool, like to not touch him.”
An affidavit said that video surveillance showed Gilmore holding the child by one leg and eventually dropping the child head first.
Police said the child was rushed to the hospital as a trauma alert, reportedly suffering blunt force trauma to his head.
The child was released from the hospital on Tuesday, police said.
“The child is doing fine and has been discharged from the hospital and is not expected to have any long-term health issues as a result of this tragic event,” a Daytona police officer said in a statement to Fox News.
Gilmore told police he and the boy’s mother had been drinking all day by the pool, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
Gilmore remains in jail without bond.
