Body camera video released this week shows a Homestead police officer stripping off his gear and wading into a pond to pull a 12-year-old boy with autism to safety, an August rescue that earned him a life-saving honor from the department. The boy had been reported in the middle of a lake behind his home on Aug. 2, and within moments Officer Carston Addison was in the water bringing him to shore.
The footage, obtained by CBS News Miami, shows Addison responding to a call about a juvenile in the water, recognizing the child was in distress, and removing his gear before entering the pond. He then carried the boy safely to shore. On the recording, the boy is heard telling the officer, “I don't want to go to jail,” and an officer is heard reassuring him that he was simply being taken to see a doctor.
Homestead Police Chief Mario Knapp, who became chief in 2025, called Addison's response a split-second decision. “He answered the call, he went into the water, and he saved that boy,” Knapp said, according to the same outlet's reporting. Knapp also noted that drowning rescues are especially dangerous because a person in distress may grab onto anything nearby, including the rescuer.
A Rookie Officer's Quick Response
Addison has served as a police officer for less than a year, per the station's report. He declined to speak on camera about the rescue. Knapp has now presented two life-saving awards since taking over as chief in 2025, and he awarded Addison a special life-saving award for the pond rescue.
Devita Price, identified as the child's former foster mother and a healthcare worker, praised Addison's immediate response. She said he arrived promptly and did not hesitate to remove his gear, enter the lake, and bring the child to shore. Price added that the situation was frightening and that she was relieved children in Homestead were safer because of officers like Addison, telling the outlet that first responders often do not get enough credit for their work.
The City of Homestead later formalized the recognition. During a City Council meeting, Mayor Steven D. Losner and the council presented Addison with a Certificate of Merit, according to a post from the City of Homestead on X, which described the honor as recognition of his courageous actions while responding to an autistic juvenile in need of help.
Part of a Troubling Statewide Pattern
The Homestead rescue lands amid grim statistics on autism-related drownings tracked by the Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County. The organization's database, last updated Sept. 1, shows that 16 children with autism or suspected autism had drowned in Florida in 2026 as of Aug. 25. That follows 2025, when 39 children with autism or suspected autism drowned in the state — the highest number ever recorded there.
Since Jan. 1, 2021, the council has tallied 152 such drownings statewide, and it reports that children with autism or suspected autism made up 59 percent of all Florida drownings involving a child age 5 or older during that span. Nationally, the council counted at least 78 autism-related child drownings in 2025 and at least 300 since 2021. The council's data also identifies ponds and retention ponds as the most likely bodies of water where a child with autism will drown in Florida — exactly the kind of setting where Addison found the Homestead boy.
Other Florida rescues this year echo the same pattern. In September, an officer was recorded rushing into a pond to save a 5-year-old boy with autism who had wandered from home, according to WCJB. And last December, a 6-year-old boy with autism was pulled from a pond on Christmas night after wandering from home, as reported by CBS12. Earlier this year, Oviedo's City Council also recognized an officer, Matthew Brongel, for helping save a 15-month-old child from drowning, per WFTV.
For Homestead, the body cam footage offers a rare, unfiltered look at how quickly a routine call can turn into a life-or-death response — and why officials there are holding up Addison's split-second choice as a model for a department, and a state, still grappling with how to keep vulnerable children safe near water.
