Police: Child dies in car while father smoked pot outside

Justin Price | The Arizona Republic

Show Caption Hide Caption Mother recalls pain of child dying in hot car A Phoenix father is facing charges for the death of his 3-month-old son, who was left in their hot car for more than an hour. An Arizona mother who lost her son in a similar accident recalls her loss and explains how she managed to move on.

Infant died Wednesday after his dad drove the child to his workplace on his day off

The dad%2C a kitchen manager at a pub%2C asked an employee for marijuana

Police say they were smoking joints while standing in front of the car where the child was dying

PHOENIX — The father of a 3-month-old boy who died after being left in a car was believed to be smoking marijuana in front of the carwhile his infant son was still inside, according to court documents released Friday.

Daniel Gray's son, Jamison, died Wednesday after being left in the vehicle, parked at his workplace, for more than an hour, according to Phoenix police. Gray, 31, was charged with manslaughter and child abuse in connection with the death and remains in Maricopa County Jail, unable to pay a $100,000 bond.

He initially told police that he had gone to B.T. Sports Pub on his day off to check on some things, according to Phoenix police and Maricopa County Superior Court documents.

A witness observed Gray and an employee standing in front of the parked car outside B.T. Sports Pub and assumed they were smoking marijuana, according to court documents.

When investigators questioned the employee seen with Gray, the employee admitted that Gray asked him for marijuana and that both went to stand in front of the vehicle.

That employee was unaware that the infant was still in the car, according to the documents. Gray did not tell detectives what he and the other employee were doing.

By the time the infant was removed from the vehicle, shortly before noon on a day when the high was 107 degrees, he was unresponsive. Temperatures inside a closed car can rise to more than 170 degrees when the outside temperature is 100 degrees, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Jamison was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

Gray, a kitchen manager at the pub, told police he had "lost track of time" while checking on business there.

When Gray remembered his son, he retrieved the unresponsive baby and took him into the pub's cooler where a co-worker began to perform CPR while another called 911. The first officer to arrive at the scene also tried to revive the child before an ambulance arrived.

"There's no question" that Gray didn't intend for his son to die, a prosecutor said Friday during Gray's initial court hearing.

However, Gray has a criminal history of substance abuse and he was grossly negligent, said George Kelemen Jr., deputy Maricopa County attorney.

Gray served about a year in prison after he was convicted of aggravated driving under the influence in 2010, spent three months in jail in connection with marijuana possession in 2006, and was jailed for two months in 2004 also related to marijuana possession.

The prosecutor called Gray's actions in his son's death are akin to an inattentive drunken driver causing the death of a passenger.

"The state believes the tragedy that occurred Wednesday is not simply an unavoidable mistake of a thoughtful parent," Kelemen told a judge who set bail for Gray. Gray doesn't yet have a lawyer.

Jamison was the 30th child in the United States this year to die after being left in a hot car, according to data from KidsandCars.org.

Contributing: The Associated Press