A man convicted after the drowning death last year of his 2-year-old son has been arrested again, this time by Longmont police who say he assaulted an officer while being booked on a drunken driving count.
Police say Gil Dwayne Smith, 44, of Longmont was arrested Friday after he crashed into the back of a van at Main Street and Colorado 66 about 5 p.m. Witnesses told police that Smith had a boy riding in the Dodge truck at the time of the crash and that the child was not in a car seat or wearing a seat belt. No other information on the boy was available.
Smith was driving erratically before he hit the van, according to an arrest report obtained Sunday.
Efforts to reach Smith and his family for comment were unsuccessful.
“After impact Gil kept accelerating and spinning the tires of the pickup,” the report says. “Once Gil finally stopped the vehicle he got out and the vehicle was still running and in gear.”
During booking, Smith had trouble walking and was combative when Officer Jason Malterud asked him to put away his cellphone, according to Malterud’s arrest report.
Malterud told Smith that he was going to use a Taser on him if he did not cooperate, and the report says Smith tried to grab the Taser out of Malterud’s holster.
The report says Smith also repeatedly kicked Malterud. It took several officers to subdue Smith into a hobble device that restricted his leg movements, the report said.
“I made sure he did not have my Taser and then I moved him to the southwest corner of the booking room where I placed him up against the wall,” Malterud wrote. “While the incident was going on Gil kept yelling white boy and other names at me.”
Smith was booked into the Boulder County Jail on suspicion of second-degree assault while in custody, resisting arrest, driving under the influence and careless driving.
In January, Smith was sentenced to 60 weekend days in the county jail and five years of probation after pleading guilty to child abuse resulting in the death of his son, Shay Smith.
He could have received 12 years in prison, but a judge determined that while he showed a lack of common sense, there was no evidence Smith intended for the toddler to die.
The conditions of Smith’s probation bar him from boating or drinking.
Shay died after falling into Carter Lake in July while being towed on a “Super Screamer” tube behind his father’s boat.
Smith registered a 0.084 percent blood-alcohol content the day his son died. While that blood-alcohol level is illegal for driving, it’s under the legal limit for boating.
Rescue crews searched for weeks in Carter Lake and never found Shay’s body. Authorities have said they were astonished that Smith water-skied nearby during the search effort.
Three months after Shay died, Smith was arrested at Carter Lake on suspicion of drunken boating when he crashed into another boat while driving the same boat that his son was behind, according to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. He pleaded guilty to drunken boating and resisting arrest.
During that arrest, deputies reported that Smith was combative and had banged his head on the patrol car window.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
