These Florida Teenagers Recorded a Video of a Man Drowning Instead of Calling 911

It takes a lot to shock and horrify Florida police officers, but a group of five teenagers appalled the entire country when they made cell phone videos of a 31-year-old man named Jamel Dunn drowning and heckled him while he died, instead of helping or calling 911.

Jamel Dunn drowned in a pond in Florida on July 9. He walked into the pond on his own, possibly intending to commit suicide. Five days after he died, someone spotted his body in the pond and notified police.

Teenagers filmed the whole thing.

At first it seemed like an ordinary sort of tragedy. Dunn went into the water by himself and died. But then it turned out that a group of five 14- to 18-year-old kids witnessed the entire event. They did not try to help Dunn or even call the police. Worst of all, they actually filmed his death, shouting and laughing at him the whole time.

After Dunn died, the kids reportedly started sharing the video with their friends, according to CBS. As the video went around, someone with a shred of conscience and decency called the police and told them about the video going around.

The video is horrible. The kids really did watch Dunn struggling in the pond.

“F—— junkie, get out the water, you gonna die,” one of the kids laughed.

“Ain’t nobody’s going to help you, you dumb b—-,” another said. “You should’ve never got in there.”

This went on for about a minute in the video, before Jamel Dunn cried out and went under for the last time. At that point, one of the kids goes, ”He just died!”

Nobody called the police.

One of the kids said something about calling the police, but the others shot that idea down. Dunn’s body wasn’t found for five more days.

Police were horrified. They called the kids’ actions “utterly inhumane and cruel,” but said they couldn’t actually charge them with anything. Dunn went into the water on his own. Legally, the kids didn’t have to help.

“For these kids to just do what they did and video and be laughing about it,” a police spokesperson said, “it’s just mind-boggling.”

Police found and interviewed the kids who made the video. Police say the kids don’t seem sorry.

On Friday, however, it turned out the teenagers could be charged with a crime. Prosecutors might be able to charge the kids with failing to report a death.

Jamel Dunn’s sister saw the video of her brother’s death, and she’s furious.

”If they can sit there and watch somebody die in front of their eyes, imagine what they’re going to do when they get older?” she wrote on Facebook, according to the New York Times. 

(Image: iStockPhoto / a_Taiga)