A man who threw a 4-year-old boy off a 25-foot railroad bridge, and the boy’s mother, have both been charged with reckless endangerment by the Grays Harbor County prosecutor and the child and his sibling have been removed from their mother's care.
The incident came to light on Wednesday after deputies were called to the Wynoochee River near Montesano on August 24 for a report that a boy had been thrown off a bridge and an argument was happening between bystanders and those responsible for the child.
Deputies arrived and first spoke with two people who had witnessed the child plummeting from the bridge.
One witness, Kaylub Fawley, had recorded the incident and then he and his friend called police. Read the witnesses' accounts of the incident at this link.
"He went right in the water, landed neck first down in there," Fawley told KIRO 7. "Soon as he popped back up, (he was) just screaming bloody murder. On the way down, the mom's screaming 'Whoo-hoo.' "
A deputy viewed the video and “observed what appeared to be a child being thrown from the train trestle and landing with a substantial amount of force into the water below,” according to a sheriff’s office news release.
(Warning: Video contains explicit language.)
According to the witnesses, several people were yelling at the man on the train trestle not to throw the child, but the man did anyway.
Witnesses told police that the mother of the child had swam out to the general area of where the child was going to land before the man threw the child. The boy had apparently been wearing a life jacket at the time, the news release said.
Additional deputies and a Washington State Patrol trooper arrived and found the child and his mother, a 22-year-old from Aberdeen. She told police her son was fine, and though deputies said they also believed the child was OK, they called for medics as a precautionary measure.
After an examination, medics concluded that the child was not hurt.
According to police, the mother initially told deputies that she had lost sight of her son before suddenly seeing a man throw him from the bridge.
Deputies said eventually, she told them her son had kept asking her to let him jump off of the bridge, but she continued to tell him no.
Shortly after, a man she had just met at the river said he was going to throw him off the bridge.
She said it was at this point that she agreed and swam out into the water. The man then threw her son into the river and the mother retrieved him.
The man who threw the child was located nearby and interviewed by deputies. Deputies said the 35-year-old Aberdeen man admitted to throwing the child off of the bridge and acknowledged having just met the woman and her child at the river.
According to deputies, the man told them that the boy wanted to jump and he was just trying to help the 4-year-old do so safely.
Deputies said they believed the man was drunk at the time of the interview.
The child was released to his mother and Child Protective Services was notified.
After completing the investigation, investigators submitted the case to the Grays Harbor County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office on Tuesday.
After reviewing the case, Grays Harbor County Prosecutor Katie Svoboda cited she cited Jeremiah Proschaska-Goodwin and Taylor Richardson with reckless endangerment. She also ordered the boy and his sibling be removed from their mother's care.
Proschaska-Goodwin was also cited for criminal trespass for being on the train trestle.
In the State of Washington, reckless endangerment (RCW 9A.36.050) is as follows:
<em>A person is guilty of reckless endangerment when he or she recklessly engages in conduct not amounting to drive-by shooting but that creates a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury to another person.</em>
Reckless endangerment is a gross misdemeanor that can be punished by up to 364 days in jail and/or a $5,000 fine. Second-degree criminal trespass is a misdemeanor that can be punished by up to 90 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.
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