Inset: Sharef Omar Smith (Brevard County Sheriff”s Office). Background: Quality Inn hotel in Palm Bay, Florida, where a boy under Smith’s care drowned (Google Maps).
A man fell asleep in a Florida hotel pool as the 3-year-old boy he was caring for struggled to stay afloat and eventually drowned, according to cops.
When a hotel maid spotted the boy in the pool, she rushed to rescue him and pulled him out. Cops say the man, 40-year-old Sharef Omar Smith, allegedly refused to help the staff member and finally looked at her and said “F— you, b—.”
The incident unfolded around 11 a.m. Saturday at the Quality Inn in Palm Bay. The maid was cleaning a room on the third floor when she looked down on the pool and saw a boy floating in it. She ran down and yelled at Smith to “Grab the baby!” a probable cause arrest affidavit said. Smith was allegedly asleep in the pool on the steps and didn’t budge. The staff member pulled the boy, identified in the report as KS, from the deep end.
The boy was “lifeless,” per the complaint.
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The maid did not know CPR but tried to get the boy to start breathing as she “begged” Smith to help her, according to cops. Eventually, Smith woke up but he just “stood there not doing anything,” cops wrote.
“She said she screamed at him repeatedly to do something, but he would not respond to assist. She said he finally looked at her and said, ‘F— you, b—’ and then continued to use profanity as she held onto KS,” the complaint stated.
Smith allegedly continued his verbal assault on other employees as they came out to help and called 911. He had a wine bottle in his bag and hotel room and his breath smelled of alcohol, cops noted. Smith also was uncooperative with police, according to the affidavit.
The boy was rushed to one hospital and airlifted to another but later died.
Cops got a hold of the child’s mother, who said Smith was not intoxicated when she left the room about 10 a.m. but she “knows him to be a heavy drinker and has had many DUIs,” cops wrote. After she left the hotel, Smith called her looking for the boy’s swimming suit. But she did not want Smith to take him to the pool because he is “irresponsible,” the affidavit stated.
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While he was at the hospital an officer overheard the mother yelling at Smith on the phone for being “drunk again,” cops wrote.
Detectives reviewed surveillance video from the motel that showed the boy was “drowning for approximately 20 to 23 minutes in front of the defendant who was asleep in the pool,” the complaint said.
Smith is facing charges of child neglect and aggravated manslaughter. He’s being held at the Brevard County Jail without bond.
