‘Needed to Teach Him a Lesson’: Disturbing Video Shows Florida Man Shaking Boy, 10, By the Neck at Florida Playground Over Water Gun Fight with His Son
A 60-year-old Florida man was arrested after a shocking video showed him choking and violently shaking a 10-year-old boy by the neck at a Sunny Isles Beach playground on Memorial Day, later telling police that “I needed to teach him a lesson.”
Robert Sandy Marcu faces felony charges of battery by strangulation and aggravated child abuse, according to an arrest warrant issued on May 27.
He was jailed at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center before a judge set bond at $5,000 and ordered him to stay away from the victim.
The choking incident happened at Gwen Margolis Park on North Bay Road and was filmed by another child who grabbed his cellphone when Marcu confronted the young victim over a minor altercation involving his son.
Marcu’s son and the victim attended the same school and were involved in an ongoing dispute when another disagreement erupted on the playground, and Marcu decided to settle the score, police said.
The disturbing incident occurred as the boys were play-fighting with water guns when the roughhousing seemed to trigger Marcu, who grabbed his son’s opponent by the neck with both hands and shook him like a rag doll.
The man’s grip cut off the boy’s airway and temporarily prevented his breathing, the victim’s father told police at the scene.
Sunny Isles Beach Police Sgt. Melissa Porro said Marcu took “matters into his own hands” and overreacted to what was basically child’s play, noting that the two boys never exchanged blows.
“He went ahead and approached the other child and proceeded to choke this child and violently choke him, causing this child to be extremely fearful and crying and very upset,” Porro told local news stations.
The attack left scratches and abrasions around the boy’s throat, and Marcu was tracked down and taken into custody.
Porro said Marcu openly admitted to attacking the boy and shockingly said something to suggest the boy deserved what happened.
“He basically spontaneously told the officers, ‘Yeah, I know what I did, I needed to teach him a lesson,’” Porro said. “You can see from this video that you have a fully grown, tall, large man against this young, helpless child, so yes, absolutely, this child could’ve been seriously injured.”
The video was the critical piece of evidence that put Marcu behind bars, with Porro praising the quick thinking of the other child who filmed the unsettling episode.
“We couldn’t ask for a better video,” she said, according to WPLG Local10.
Porro emphasized that it is never acceptable for an adult to physically grab a child, especially if not their own.