{"id":96433,"date":"2025-12-26T17:29:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/96433\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T17:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:29:11","slug":"florida-mom-arrested-for-dunking-6-year-old-boy-in-hotel-pool-is-ex-cop-who-lectured-about-bullying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/96433\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida mom arrested for dunking 6-year-old boy in hotel pool is ex cop who lectured about bullying"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida mom accused of holding a 6-year-old boy underwater at a Florida hotel in revenge for him doing the same to her young son is a former police officer who lectured schoolkids about the harm of bullying, it has emerged.<\/p>\n

Tiffany Lee Griffith, 36, told police she was a former law enforcement officer when she was arrested earlier this month for holding the boy underwater for \u201cseveral seconds\u201d after he repeatedly dunked her own son, according to a police report obtained by WPBF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Griffith previously worked at the Punta Gorda Police Department under the name Tiffany Lee Viola from 2013 to 2018, the department confirmed to the outlet.<\/p>\n

The mom accused of repeatedly dunking a child, lectured school kids about the harm of bullying when she was a cop. Punta Gorda Police Department<\/p>\n

She worked as a school resource officer, according to several online posts, and was awarded employee of the quarter in 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One online post shows Griffith teaching high school freshmen at Charlotte High School in Punta Gorda about bullying and sexting. <\/p>\n

A Facebook post <\/a>by the Charlotte County Sheriff\u2019s Office about a potential threat to a high school lists Viola as the school resource deputy investigating.<\/p>\n

Griffith, from Fort Myers, was arrested on Dec. 19th after she allegedly got in the pool at the ritzy Gaylord Palms Hotel in Orlando and started screaming at a child she believed was being too rough with her son.<\/p>\n

She then \u201cplaced her hands on the victim\u2019s shoulders and forcibly dunked him underwater for several seconds,\u201d according to the Osceola County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Security footage obtained by ClickOrlando captured the moment the outraged mom waded over the boy and held him down for about 2-3 seconds.<\/p>\n

Griffith was arrested on Dec. 19.<\/p>\n

She allegedly dunked the 6-year-old boy for picking on her son. WKMG<\/p>\n

The boy got out of the pool \u201cvisibly upset\u201d and bleeding from his nose and immediately told his parents what happened, according to police.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Griffith then screamed at the boy\u2019s mother and left the pool area, cops said.<\/p>\n

She was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and booked at the Osceola County Jail. She was released on a $20,000 bond on Tuesday, according to WPBF.<\/p>\n

Her husband testified at her pretrial release hearing this week that Griffith was worried that her son, who is 8 and has autism, could have been in danger. <\/p>\n

The state argued that she posed a threat to the public and requested that she remain locked up.<\/p>\n

The judge ruled for her to make no contact with the accuser or his family, nor contact witnesses, return to the scene or consume alcohol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida mom accused of holding a 6-year-old boy underwater at a Florida hotel in revenge for him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,49915,8181,15649,4278],"class_list":["post-96433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-moms","tag-police-officers","tag-pools","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}