A leisurely harbor cruise turned to panic when a father reportedly threw his 7-year-old son overboard when the boy wouldn't stop crying. The father say he did nothing wrong. INSIDE EDITION has the story.
There are stunning words from a dad accused of a startling deed—throwing his 7-year-old son off a boat as it cruised along a busy California waterway!
"It didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary," said the father, Sloane Briles.
Briles allegedly threw his son off the boat because he wouldn't stop crying and was also allegedly seen hitting the boy—a charge he angrily denies.
"There was no hitting, no striking of any kind, no anger whatsoever," Briles insisted.
It happened on a boat called "The Queen" on an otherwise beautiful day. The dad and his 7-year-old son were standing toward the front of the boat, to the horror of the other passengers, he allegedly lifted the boy over the rail and threw him into the water. Passengers immediately called 911.
Caller: "I'm on a boat tour called The Queen, and there's a man that just threw his son overboard. We're out in the middle of the bay. He just threw him over. Oh my God, this guy is a jerk!"
The dad's version of this life-threatening escapade in Newport Harbor is totally different.
"Him and I were screwing around. I put him him over the edge, and then he jumped, and then I went in right after him," said Briles.
The boy was lucky he wasn't run over by a passing boat on the busy waterway. But his dad doesn't see it that way.
"There's no way I thought anything would be unsafe for him. There was no other vehicles around, just us, a dad and son, floating up the key together and me pulling him out," said Briles.
Actually, the boy was pulled to safety by someone on a private vessel, while his father swam back to the tour boat and was pulled aboard. Some passengers claim he was intoxicated.
Caller: "They're letting him, the father, on the boat. And he's, he's drunk and violent."
Witnesses say Briles had been having an angry argument with his girlfriend before the boy hit the water, but Briles denies it.
"I don't know where the anger came from, because we were having a pretty good harbor cruise. We just talk loud at each other. We don't argue at all," said Briles.
The girlfriend, Jennifer Burrelli, is standing by her man.
"If there was striking going on prior to being thrown overboard, don't you think people would have come and citizen's arrest you?" said Burrelli.
Briles has been charged with child endangerment and resisting arrest, but in his mind, he did nothing wrong with his son.
"He went over the side by himself. It was that quick," said Briles.
