A 35-year-old mother was arrested in connection with her son’s drowning—in what her attorney called retaliation—after she filed a million-dollar lawsuit against Camp Cohen Water Park and the City of El Paso in Texas.
The woman, identified as Jessica Weaver, was taken into custody in September and faces a charge of injury to a child by omission for the death of her three-year-old son, Anthony Malave, People reported.
Weaver’s attorney, Ryan MacLeod, suggested to the outlet that the mother was arrested in retaliation after she filed a $1 million lawsuit against the City of El Paso for negligence and wrongful death.
Weaver alleged that at the time of her son’s drowning, the water park was “severely understaffed and that the few lifeguards on duty were undertrained and had no idea what they were doing,” People reported. Supposedly, there was no footage to prove or deny that the mother’s allegations were true.
The outlet obtained the lawsuit, saying, “Conveniently, the video footage – which Defendant City of El Paso was responsible for maintaining – was destroyed.”
According to People, witnesses gave different accounts of the young boy’s drowning. Someone who fits Weaver’s description wasn’t paying attention to the child when the tragedy happened. In a police complaint affidavit obtained by People, the witness said Weaver was “by herself on her phone, never looking up or paying attention to anything.”
Someone else said, “Seeing the mother singing along to a song that was playing and she was laying down, looking at her phone approximately seven minutes before the child/victim was getting pulled out of the water.” A third witness recalled seeing the child without any kind of flotation devices was “strange.”
According to the outlet, the affidavit added that “numerous life vests available for those in attendance,” which was around 466 people.
The young child drowned around 5 p.m. on May 13. The parent and child were at the water park for a soft opening.
The World Health Organization reported that drowning is the third-leading cause of unintentional injury death worldwide.