A Swedish family is suing the Radisson Resort Miami Beach after their 11-year-old daughter was allegedly assaulted at the hotel pool, raising concerns about hotel security and guest safety responsibilities.
A Swedish couple is suing the Radisson Resort Miami Beach hotel for damages stemming from the assault of their teenage daughter at the hotel’s pool last October.
The civil suit, filed in the Miami-Dade Circuit Court, recounts how the girl, then 11 years old, was swimming at an outdoor pool at the resort when she was sexually assaulted by an older man who was not a guest of the hotel. The girl called out to her sister and parents nearby, and the man fled but was apprehended by the police on Collins Avenue shortly thereafter.
The man has pleaded not guilty to charges of lewd and lascivious battery on a child and burglary with assault for entering a property without permission; the case is still pending in criminal court. In their civil complaint, the family is suing the hotel for failing to provide adequate security.
Justin B. Shapiro of the law firm Leesfield & Partners is handling the case. “We have no indication that they had visible presence of security anywhere on that hotel’s grounds,” Shapiro said in a statement attached to a release announcing the suit. “Which is, I say, grossly inadequate because that is highly unusual in Miami Beach. Even hotels with subpar security have some showing of security around the premises.”
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In Florida, hotels have a duty of care to provide safe premises for their guests, including protection from foreseeable crimes committed by third parties. This includes ensuring that the property itself remains secure from trespass, but also that the property is sufficiently monitored by security personnel to prevent crimes against its guests. Many South Florida hotels employ a wristband system so that registered guests can be quickly identified by security staff monitoring the premises around the clock using high-definition CCTV camera feeds, paying close attention to entry points. Visitors without wristbands—particularly in guest-only areas like pool decks—would be closely monitored and asked to leave if found loitering.
Miami Beach’s rates of property and violent crime are significantly higher than the rest of Florida, and many hotels and resorts in the city maintain significant security staffing. Another guest at the hotel had recently posted a complaint that they had been robbed on the same pool deck.
Shapiro told The New York Times that many South Florida hotels have recently cut their security budgets to invest more in landscaping and amenities to draw in more visitors, because they’re more important to travel shoppers than security services when searching for accommodations.
The girl’s family told The New York Times that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder following the incident. They also said they filed the suit and spoke to the newspaper to draw attention to the incident and urge other hotels in the area to increase their security efforts to ensure further assaults do not occur.
The City of Miami Beach maintains a crime dashboard that reports that, through the 12-month period ending May 27, the overall crime rate is down 21% vs. the prior year, with similar decreases in both violent and property crimes. The overwhelmingly most common crime was theft, followed by fraud and burglary.
Shapiro’s firm has won lawsuits against other Florida hotels for failing to provide adequate security, including a situation where a hotel worker was assaulted by a trespasser who wasn’t challenged by security, and another couple who were battered by an assailant while hotel security personnel stood by without intervening.
Trial attorney Evan Robinson said in a statement that the goal of the suit is to hold the hotel accountable for negligence. “A hotel cannot invite families onto its property, profit from their trust, and then ignore basic safety measures that would protect children from harm,” he said.