Police arrested a Jacksonville man Tuesday evening, saying his young son was trying to get into a swimming pool without adult supervision.
According to the report, Ricky Odom told police that “he had been arrested in the past for the same thing” as he was being taken into custody. Court records indicate Odom, 38, was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor in July 2015.
The prosecutor in the 2015 case dropped those charges.
Jacksonville police said officers responded about 7 p.m. Tuesday to Stonewall Apartments at 1010 North First St. on a call of a child, who looked about 2 years old, trying to get into the pool without a parent present. Per the report, two bystanders stayed with the boy to keep him from jumping into the pool, which was 5 feet deep. After no one came to check on the child for 20 to 30 minutes, they called the police.
When officers responded, the child couldn’t articulate his name clearly. An officer went into a breezeway in the apartment building and found four other children, according to the report. One of the four, a girl, told the officer that the boy was her brother and led police to her apartment and yelled for her father, Odom.
Odom appeared and told police that the boy is his son, Ricky Jr., and that he had just turned 4. In the report, officers said the boy did not speak like a 4-year-old would.
Odom was then charged with first-degree child endangerment and arrested.
He was processed into the Pulaski County jail Tuesday but did not appear on the jail roster Wednesday morning.