Dad: ‘Horseplay' led to tossing son overboard

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A man accused of throwing his 7-year-old son overboard during a sightseeing cruise around California's Newport Harbor said he and the boy were just "horseplaying" and talked about jumping in the water together.

"I was not trying to kill my son. We were playing in the shallows," Sloane Briles told KTLA-TV on Tuesday. "I discussed it with him. We'd jump in together and just thought it would be funny, ha ha."

Two of 85 people who were on the Sunday afternoon tour saw things differently. In 911 tapes released Tuesday, the passengers expressed shock and disgust after seeing Briles toss the boy into the water.

Staff members on the 42-foot boat said Briles told the boy he needed to toughen up then threw him into the water five feet below, said Charlie Maas, who oversees the tour company.

Someone on the boat threw the boy a life ring, and he was safely rescued, uninjured, by another boater. The father also jumped in to save him before swimming back to the tour boat.

Another 911 caller said she thought Briles was "drunk and violent."

Briles was taken into custody for child endangerment and resisting arrest. He denied witnesses' accounts that the boy was crying and said he had never hit his son.

His girlfriend told the New York Daily News that he was only "roughhousing" with his son as he often does and regretted his "stupid" judgment.