Father accused of drowning son had previous disputes with boy's mother
MILWAUKEE — The mother of a child drowned in a Milwaukee pond on Saturday previously filed for a restraining order against the child's father.
Police said after a dispute with the child's mother, Sean A. Flowers Jr., 25, took his son Sean A. Flowers III — who was born April 18 — and waded into a nearby pond and sat down holding the baby under water. A witness ran into the pond to try to get Flowers to hand him the child.
"I yelled at him, 'Where's the baby? Where's the baby,' " a man identified as Joey Griffin told WITI-TV. "And then I saw a baby floating in the water. I grabbed it. I tried to swim away with it. He lunged at me and took the baby again and swam farther, deeper," the witness said.
Flowers is being held without bail at the Milwaukee County Jail. Police have referred the case to prosecutors, who are expected to consider possible homicide charges this week.
Another neighbor had called 911 during the early argument in the Northridge area of Milwaukee.
Officers ran into the pond in an effort to rescue the boy, but the father was no longer holding him. Police arrested the suspect and began searching for the child, who was found unconscious within minutes, the department said in a statement.
Milwaukee firefighters tried unsuccessfully to revive the child. He died at the scene.
Court records show that the victim was the second child of Flowers and the boy's mother, who is 26. She bore their first child, a girl, in August 2014, but Flowers disputed paternity until a hearing in February 2015. After DNA testing showed he was the biological father, both parents acknowledged his paternity.
A judge granted them joint custody, with primary custody to the mother and Flowers to have the child for reasonable amounts of time upon reasonable notice. The judge also ordered Flowers to make child support payments of $20 a week and pay $500 toward expenses of the birth.
A couple months later, the woman filed for a restraining order against Flowers, alleging he had threatened her and kicked down her door, and that he had previously struck her in the face and punched her repeatedly at other times and refused to let her leave.
Last month, the original 2015 child support action was consolidated into a new one, and Flowers was ordered to begin paying $62.50 a week starting Monday.
In 2012, Flowers and the woman had been charged together with felony theft, accused of snatching the purse of a Marquette University student. Flowers was arrested hours later, and both he and the woman pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft charges.
She later wrote to the judge, asking that Flowers be released from jail to witness the birth of their first child. Flowers had been sentenced in July 2012 to a suspended 18-month jail term, in lieu of 18 months probation, but had violated his probation and was serving the jail time. Records do not indicate that he was released early for the birth.
In April, Flowers had written to the judge in the theft case asking to have his 2012 record expunged because it was making it hard to find a job or get credit and to support his family. A court official wrote back to explain that Flowers was not eligible to have the theft conviction expunged because his probation had been revoked.
Follow Bruce Vielmetti on Twitter: @ProofHearsay