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City Closes Apartment Pool After Death

City closes apartment pool
after toddler's death

ARLINGTON -- A pool at an apartment complex where a toddler died Sunday was closed by city officials later in the day because of a gate that would not lock correctly, authorities said.

Josiah Myles, 2, was found floating in the pool by residents of the Castle Pines Apartments in west Arlington about 9 a.m. Josiah was taken to Medical Center of Arlington, where he was pronounced dead at 9:47 a.m., according to the Tarrant County medical examiner's office.

The cause of the boy's death was not listed.

According to police, Josiah was home with his 3-year-old brother and their mother while their father was at work. The mother awoke about 9 a.m. and asked where Josiah was, and the 3-year-old said he was in the water, police said.

She looked in the bathtub, then went to the pool, where the boy had already been found by other residents at the apartment complex, in the 4000 block of Woodland Park Boulevard.

After the toddler was found, the city closed the pool because the gate would not lock properly. Citations will be issued for the violations found Sunday, said Debbie Lubke, Arlington's acting assistant director of community services.

The pool was permitted to open on July 3 by city inspectors, Lubke said. But during a July 12 inspection, the apartment complex was cited for numerous violations, including faulty electrical wiring and plumbing, graffiti, broken windows, potholes in the parking lots, overflowing trash bins and 140-degree water bubbling up from the ground near the swimming pool.

None of those violations was related to the pool gate, Lubke said.

The city gave management 24 hours to correct the most serious violations and 30 days to correct the others, or face citations.

Code inspectors used a new scoring system, similar to one used for restaurants, to determine whether the apartment complex passed or failed. Properties start with a score of 100 and have points deducted for every violation.

Life safety violations are worth 10 points and non-life safety violations are worth two. Properties with 69 points or less are considered failing and are subject to more frequent inspections.

Castle Pines received a score of minus-168.

The apartment complex corrected the most serious violations found by inspectors by July 13 and had 30 days to correct all violations.

Apartment officials did not return a phone call Sunday seeking comment.

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