Jamel Dunn drowned in a retention pond in the city of Cocoa, Florida on July 9. Later, an extremely disturbing video began circulating on social media showing the moment the man was drowning while some teenagers mocked him and filmed. Cocoa police say they later discovered the teenagers who filmed the video. They are aged between the ages of 14 and 18. The video was released by the state attorney's office on Thursday. In the video, the teens can be heard laughing at Dunn.
"F******* junkie, get out the water, you gonna die," one teen can be heard saying.
"Ain't nobody's going to help you, you dumb b****," another said. "You should've never got in there."
The man kept screaming for help but the teenagers refused to help or call the police and the man eventually drowned.
“Oh, he just died,” one of them said while laughing. The group then fled the park.
The man's badly decomposing body was found on July 12 days after his fiancee filed a missing person's report when he did not return home. The fiancee later discovered the video shot by the teenagers on social media and she turned it in to police.
“That video is disturbing,” Cocoa Police Chief Mike Cantaloupe said during a Friday press conference. “I don’t even know if I can think of words to describe it.”
“I want to think that’s a natural instinct for any of us, that if we saw somebody in trouble or somebody having an issue, that we would at least try to get them help,”
At first, the State Attorney’s Office said they could not charge the teens because there is no law in Florida for failing to call police or to act as a “Good Samaritan”. However, Police have now found a law with which to charge the teens. Police recommend charges under a statue that states a person who witnesses a death must report it to a medical examiner. This charge has not been applied to a case like this, but the State Attorney’s Office will decide if a case will be filed.
“It’s our belief that this law has never been enforced in a scenario like this, but we feel it could be applicable,” Cantaloupe said, adding that “what it comes down to is it’s a moral issue.”
“There is absolutely no justification for what the teens did,” he added. “Pursuing criminal charges is a way to hold them accountable for their own actions.”
City mayor, Henry Parrish, said in a statement that the police department will work with the State Attorney’s Office “to pursue the application of criminal charges against these individuals under a little known Florida Statute that in short requires a person to report a death (FS 406.12)". Parrish added that “while this in no way will bring justice for what occurred, it is a start."
A family friend said Dunn was the father of two young daughters and was known to be giving to others, Florida Today added.
Police told the paper that Dunn arrived at the pond after an argument with his fiancée.
“The kids were at the park that day smoking marijuana and apparently saw him walk into the water,” Martinez told Florida Today. “He walked in on his own. They were watching him.”
Police said Dunn went into the water willingly and that a nearby home security camera shows him scaling a fence and intentionally entering the pond.
Dunn’s fiancée, Rondanielle Williams said “How could nothing in your heart tell you not to do anything when someone’s crying out for help, and you’re telling them that you’re not gonna help them?”
Source: The Blaze and NYPost
See below the video of the man drowning.
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