A Russian national has been arrested after being caught on video kicking his toddler and “slamming” her into the wall at a Florida apartment complex, police say.
The tourist claimed his 2-year-old was “being fussy” and “difficult.”
Police have charged Andrei Sevastianov, 37, with child abuse following a tip from a front desk clerk at La Perla Condos in Sunny Isles Beach, about an hour’s drive northeast of Miami.
On Tuesday, Sevastianov was with his daughter by the pool inside the apartment complex when he appeared to wrap a towel around her neck and tighten it, according to an arrest report detailing what seemed to occur on surveillance video and obtained by WPLG.
“The victim is seen flailing her arms around as he is squeezing,” police said. “He then lets go and faces the victim towards him. As he does this, he grabs the victim by the hair and slams her head on his shoulder.”
Sevastianov then made his way into the lobby, carrying his daughter. He then dropped her to the floor at “chest height,” kneeing her as she fell, the arrest documents state.
The father “then kicks her on the right side of her head. [He] then yanks the victim up from the floor by her hair,” police said.
While inside the building, Sevastianov “violently” shook the girl, “causing her head to uncontrollably snap back and forth several times,” according to authorities.
Sunny Isles Beach Police Sergeant Brian Schnell told reporters Wednesday the girl was “manhandled by her father.”
While police were arresting Sevastianov, they said he “attempted to pull away” and “forcefully elbowed” a cop in the chest.
The man was taken into custody, and his daughter was taken to the hospital.
Sevastianov told authorities that the girl “was not listening to him and being fussy, refusing to obey him,” according to the arrest documents.
He said that his daughter was “just being difficult,” insisting that he “did not lose his temper.”
The father claimed that he wrapped a towel around his daughter “because it was windy,” the report reads.
Referring to the moment she fell to the floor, he said, “‘She wanted to be put down, so I put her down.”
While Sevastianov called the incident a “mistake” that “won’t happen again,” he still faces charges.
He was charged with one count of aggravated child abuse causing great bodily harm or torture, five counts of child abuse causing no great bodily harm and one count of resisting an officer with violence.
