A hallway game of tag aboard the Carnival Glory allegedly ended with two injured children and a passenger locked in his cabin until the cruise returned to port.
David Lawrence Crosby II, 44, of Surrency, Georgia, later told officers he had been “heavily intoxicated” and did not remember hitting the kids, authorities said.
The July 26 encounter happened as three children were playing in a hallway on the Carnival ship, which typically sails from Port Canaveral in Florida to the Bahamas.
A probable cause affidavit put Crosby running through the hallway before the children were struck. One child was hit in the face and suffered a bloody lip and head pain, while another was hit in the stomach.
The ship’s security system captured what happened, officials said.
Crosby did not spend the rest of the trip moving around the ship after the alleged attack. He was confined to his cabin for the remainder of the voyage, then arrested July 27 by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.
Booking records list two child abuse counts against him.
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Court records show Crosby posted $10,000 bond on each count, for a total of $20,000, and was released from jail Tuesday.
He pleaded not guilty Wednesday. His arraignment is set for Aug. 25.
Crosby’s case added another child-related allegation to a recent run of cruise ship and Florida port incidents that included fugitives stopped before boarding, a customs-line brawl and a Royal Caribbean passenger accused of targeting a teenage girl.
At Port Canaveral, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey said deputies intercepted six would-be cruise passengers with outstanding warrants or alleged probation violations before they could leave on their trips.
The sheriff turned the failed vacations into a jailhouse punchline.
“Oh Ship!!” Ivey wrote in a social media post about the arrests at one of the world’s busiest cruise ports.
He said the group landed at his “Iron Bar Lodge” instead.
The most serious of the Port Canaveral arrests involved Martell Murray, 24, of Georgia, who was wanted on an out-of-state fugitive warrant connected to pending murder charges, according to the sheriff’s office and Brevard County jail records.
The warrant accused Murray of violating release conditions in an existing murder case. Authorities did not identify the victim, name the jurisdiction handling the case or say which condition Murray had allegedly violated.
Murray was not the only person in his travel party who lost the cruise.
Kenderia Burney, 24, was wanted on a violation-of-probation warrant, Ivey said.
“Luckily these two still got to vacation together at the Lodge even though they got accommodations with separate sleeping quarters,” Ivey quipped.
Murray and Burney were booked July 17 into the Brevard County Jail and remained held without bond. Jail records listed Murray as an out-of-state fugitive and Burney on an out-of-county warrant.
Two other named passengers also saw their cruise plans end at the jail.
Veronica Hamlet, 38, of Tampa, was arrested on a failure-to-appear warrant and released the next day after posting $1,000 bond, while James Otha Brewton, 66, of Allendale, South Carolina, was taken into custody on a violation-of-probation warrant and released July 18 after posting $500 bond, according to Ivey and jail records.
Carnival had also barred 16 people from sailing with the company after another Bahamas trip ended in a fight in a Florida customs line.
The Carnival Conquest had returned to Port Miami in June when passengers began charging at each other in the debarkation area, according to footage described by the Daily Mail.
The melee involved two families, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office told the outlet, though investigators did not say what started it.
The video showed two unidentified women fighting first, including one in a black strapless dress who ducked under a line divider and swung at a woman in polka dot pajamas. A woman in a yellow and white maxi-dress then grabbed another woman’s hair before more passengers joined in.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers tried to break up the fight.
No one was arrested because neither side decided to press charges, police said.
Carnival Cruise Line later placed 16 people on its “Do Not Sail List,” a company spokesperson told the Daily Mail.
“The incident occurred in the debarkation area under the authority of US Customs and Border Patrol [sic],” the company said. “We are appreciative of law enforcement’s swift response and handling of the matter. We do not tolerate such behavior.”
A separate Royal Caribbean case brought another allegation involving a minor aboard a cruise ship.
Matthew Stilwell, 25, of Illinois, was detained June 7 as the Allure of the Seas returned to Fort Lauderdale after leaving Port Everglades on May 30.
An arrest report obtained by Local 10 accused Stilwell of trying to take a photo under a 13-year-old girl’s dress inside the ship’s gift shop.
The girl said it happened three times before she told her mother on May 31, the first full day at sea.
The filing said Stilwell was “standing unusually close behind her with the camera application open on his cellphone.”
Law enforcement obtained surveillance footage that allegedly matched the girl’s account.
Local 10 said Stilwell allegedly confessed to deputies, though that confession was redacted from the arrest report.
He faces three felony digital voyeurism charges and was booked into the Paul Rein Detention Facility on a $22,500 bond.
