Did Officers Stand By And Watch As Three Teen Girls Drowned? Dashcam Video Hints Yes

Three teen girls are dead after a brief car chase that ended in a murky St. Petersburg pond. As the sheriff has gone on record to brand the youths “not good kids,” their families are accusing his officers of standing by and watching their children drown.

The teens are Laniya Miller, 15, Ashaunti Butler, 15, and Dominique Battle, 16. Following their drowning deaths on March 31, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office has offered one version of events — that the deputies tried to save the girls, ABC News reported.

However, dash cam footage released Monday seems to present a very different story: the officers stood on the banks of a 15-foot-deep retention pond discussing the girls’ fate as they drowned in what Sheriff Bob Gualtieri called a “death chamber.” He rejects claims that the officers did nothing to help.

“I’m not going to stand by and let these people cast a false narrative. They’re reaching, and they want to be spin masters.”

WATCH: Dash cam video shows Florida cops stood by as teens drowned in stolen car https://t.co/Wv7IWZ6KB1 pic.twitter.com/FvDdbXLePs

— Raw Story (@RawStory) April 21, 2016

The teens all had extensive criminal records for stealing cars. In the early morning hours of March 31, they were allegedly at it again. WTSP provided a detailed account of what occurred that evening.

It began at 3:30 a.m. The teens had stolen a Honda Accord from a Walmart parking lot and were spotted in Clearwater driving the car with the headlights off. A deputy turned on his emergency lights and sirens to stop the driver, an attempt that lasted 45 seconds but didn’t work. He didn’t purse the car.

About 11 minutes later, another deputy spotted the Honda and ran the plates; he discovered it was stolen and called for back-up. The sheriff claimed that officers gave chase as the car entered the Royal Palm Cemetery, driving 30 to 35 miles hour. Dashcam footage shows the deputies speeding at 93 miles per hour.

The teens drove through heavy vegetation and then into the retention pond.

“Once the car filled up with water, it went down pretty quickly. There was nothing deputies could do,” Gualtieri said, according to the Grio. “As thick as that muck is in the pond, it is almost like a carpet. The doors were closed, the windows were up and unfortunately it just became a death chamber. They drowned, they just couldn’t get out.”

Deputies can be heard in the video discussing the incident while the girls drowned.

“I hear them yelling, I think!” says one deputy.

“They’re done. They are 6-7, dude,” says another.

“They were yelling,” a deputy says. “I thought I heard yelling.”

The deputy then replies, “But now, they’re done. They’re done.”

Divers were dispatched at 4:08 a.m.; they arrived at 5:22 a.m. and went into the water at 5:53 a.m. The teens were already dead by then. An official report said a dive team found the Honda 60 yards into the pond, and though they were able to secure a tow line, they couldn’t see anything because the water was so murky.

What truly happened as the teens drowned is under dispute. The sheriff contends that officers tried to save the teens as they drowned and removed their gun belts to wade into the water. However, because the pond was “thick with sludge,” their attempts failed, Gualtieri said.

“The officers got in the pond and just because it’s not on cam doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

Further, the dashcam footage may not have captured the full event right from the start. The officer with the best vantage point drove an unmarked car right up the water, but it didn’t have a dash camera.

However, the video still appears to show officers standing around while the girls drowned. WTSP pointed out that the time stamps on dashcams of the various cruisers on the scene can’t be matched up and corroborated due to a technical issue; officers set the time on the camera manually when they start their vehicles.

Lawyers for the teens’ families are “reviewing everything.” Attorney Will Anderson said that the case has been a “smear campaign” and questions law enforcement officials’ claims about how the girls drowned.

[Image via Jonathan Billinger/Wikimedia Commons]