An El Paso mom whose three year old son drowned at a city-run water park in 2023 was indicted last week for negligence. The indictment says 35 year old Jessica Weaver was charged with “injury to a child causing serious bodily harm”.

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Now, Weaver’s attorney is firing back at the water park, its managing company and the individual lifeguards.  Attorney Ryan S. MacLeod claims that he spoke to seven ASM Global (the managing company) which he says shows the park and its employees were the ones negligent in the death of three-year-old Anthony Leo Malave who drowned at Camp Cohen in NE El Paso in May in 2023.

According to MacLeod, the park was “too crowded, too loud, and too chaotic”, noting that upper management and lifeguards were too busy in the kitchen “frying churros” and refilling sour cream containers, among other things.

Also according to the lawyer for Weaver, one lifeguard told him that it was too loud to hear the whistles going off signifying that someone was drowning.

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Another employee, who MacLeod says was working his first day on the job, didn’t even know when he went in that lifeguarded would be part of his duties.

Weaver filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of El Paso in June of 2023, less than a month after the drowning of the three-year-old.  She was arrested at her home in Indiana in August of 2023. The arrest, according to Attorney MacLeod, was retaliation for her wrongful death suit.

Eyewitness at the park on the day of the drowning say that Weaver was “looking at her phone” and “not paying attention”.

Signs at Camp Cohen state that kids younger than 7 “must be directly attended by a swimming adult” and that at all times, “must be supervised by an adult within arm’s reach”.

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