Father Of The Year Arrested For "Being Awesome" After He Threw His 5 Year-Old In The Ocean

(DailyMail)–A 37-year-old Florida man is accused of throwing his five-year-old son into the ocean to teach him how to swim before abandoning him so he could back flip from a pier.

John Bloodsworth was arrested on child abuse charges on Monday after he allegedly forced his son into the water despite him not knowing how to swim and then leaving the young boy to fend for himself.

When Daytona Beach police arrested Bloodsworth, he reportedly told them he’d been teaching the boy to swim and that he was ‘going to jail for being awesome.’

One witness, who says he raced to help the little boy, described seeing the five-year-old thrashing in the water while his father pier-dived. 

‘I said ‘I can’t take this no more’ so I went down to the pier, down to the shore and confronted him myself,’ witness Mitch Brown told WESH 2 News.

‘The little kid was out here by himself. Completely by himself. There was nobody around him, no adults,’ Mitch Brown, a former Georgia State Trooper on vacation in Daytona Beach with his family said. 

I said, ‘you’re coming with me, one way or another,’ Brown said.

Brown brought Bloodsworth to a Daytona Beach police officer, who later arrested him.

According to a Volusia County Beach Safety report, Bloodsworth claimed he was trying to teach his son to swim.

2019, man. You can’t even be awesome anymore without someone telling you how to raise your kids. I am going to judge the book by its cover here. Long hair, goatee, Florida…this guy only sees his son every other weekend and on Thursday nights. John Bloodsworth has to maximize time with his son in the short time he has him. He has to make himself a super hero dad by doing awesome stuff. Back flips off of the pier are objectively awesome. That is just a fact. And in order for the son to get the best view of the back flip off of the pier, he has to be in the water. What’s the worst that could happen if the 5 year-old was in the ocean for a few minutes as his dad climbed back up to the pier? Would be learn how to be self-reliant? Would he too be on a path towards being awesome? I guess teaching a kid important life lessons is abuse in 2019. Sad!

PS: My Nana used to live in Westport, CT. There was this place called “Devil’s Den” the next town over. It was basically cliff jumping into this resevoir. There were a bunch of different jumping points ranging from like 15 to 50 feet. The water at the bottom was like 8-10 deep so as soon as your feet hit the water you’d have to kick your legs out so you wouldn’t break your legs on the bottom. My uncles and older cousins started taking me there when I was like 9 years-old. It was awesome, but looking back they absolutely should’ve been arrested for abuse. DEFINITELY not safe. Easily could’ve died climbing up wet and slippery rocks and cliff and then jumping from 30 feet into shallow pools.