Filmed: Man allegedly suffocates child at Sunny Isles Beach park

MIAMI – Sunny Isles Beach police tell CBS News Miami they are alarmed by a new cellphone video showing a 10-year-old boy being choked and shaken by a man at Gwen Margolis Park on Memorial Day.

The cellphone shows the child’s head moving back and forth during the assault. His face is blurred to protect his identity.

Police said Robert Sandy Marcu, 60, is charged with aggravated child abuse with serious bodily injury and battery by strangulation. They say it happened just before 6 p.m.

An arrest report says they were playing with water guns when “this juvenile’s father, the defendant, grabbed T…B… by the neck, preventing him from breathing and restricting his pathways breathing and shaking him while grabbing his neck.

It left him with red marks and scratches.

The affidavit also states that Marcu said, “I know what I did and I did it to teach him a lesson.”

“The biggest concern here is that a grown man with the strength of a man attacked a child who was helpless and unable to defend himself,” Sergeant Melissa Porro told CBS’ Peter D’Oench Miami News. “When things like this happen, sometimes we’re quick to step in and do something, but we’re talking about kids.”

She said the children got into a fight and Marcu intervened and “began violently choking the child and scaring him to the point where he was crying, hysterical and very upset.”

“It was also caused by a little fight and some problems they were having,” Porro added. “Adults should never take matters into their own hands.”

Marcu appeared in bond court before Judge Mindy Glazer of MIami-Dade Circuit Court.

Marcu tried to discuss his case by saying “Well, your honor, the incident was minor.”

“Don’t talk about the facts,” Glazer said immediately. “You are presumed not guilty. You have the right to be accompanied by an attorney.”

“You are ordered to stay away from the victim whose initials are TB and have no contact with her, whether directly or indirectly, in person or in writing,” she added. “Don’t go to the park when the boy is there.”

In court, we also learned that the children attended the same school.

Porro said the 10-year-old was shaken but physically fine, adding that a check revealed Marcu had not previously had serious problems with law enforcement.

Marcu’s bond is set at $5,000.