Salvatore “Sam” Anello, a grandfather who allegedly dropped his 18-month-old granddaughter from the 11th floor of a cruise ship docked in Puerto Rico, has been charged with negligent homicide. Police says that Anello, 50, held the child up to what he thought was a closed window so she could bang on the glass. She ended up falling onto the concrete dock below.

The family, who were aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Freedom of the Seas, were docked in Puerto Rico at the time. Although the Indiana family blamed the cruise ship company for the accident, San Juan authorities alleged on Monday that Anello was responsible for his granddaughter Chloe's death. The family's attorney Michael Winkleman said the charges were like "pouring salt on the open wounds of this grieving family."

Anello, who claims he was simply playing with his granddaughter when he lifted her up, says it was a game they often engage in at home. Meanwhile, Winkleman, who is representing the family in a civil suit being prepared against Royal Caribbean, says that the fall was "clearly a tragic accident" and that the family hopes something like this never happens again.

Anello is being held on an $80,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on November 20. The child’s parents are Kimberly and Alan Wiegand, who is a South Bend, Indiana, police officer. The fall occurred on July 7 while the family was on vacation.

Winkleman, who says Chloe would often lean against and bang on the glass at her brother's hockey games, was in a children’s play area at the time of the fall. Anello had placed her on the railing, thinking there was glass when the child fell through a large, open window, landing on the concrete dock below.

"Her grandfather thought there was glass just like everywhere else, but there was not, and she was gone in an instant," said Winkleman, who believes the window should have been secured. "The family needs answers as to why there would be an open window in a wall full of fixed windows in a kids' play area? Why would you have the danger without any warning, sign, or notice?"

Chloe’s mother, Kimberley Wiegand, was on-board the cruise ship with all three of their children and both sets of grandparents, including Kimberley’s father, who is Anello, when the accident happened. The Wiegand family was cruising around the Southern Caribbean islands, a trip that began and ended in San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Immediately after Chloe fell, witnesses say they heard a “cry of pain” and screams of agony from Anello and several other family members on-board the ship. According to local media outlet El Vocero, some members were so hysterical that they had to be sedated by medics.

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Following the tragedy, the family returned to Indiana and appeared on the Today show. “I didn’t know that she went out a window. I just saw Sam standing next to the wall of windows just screaming and banging on it. There was somebody from Royal Caribbean they kept trying to stop me,” Kimberly said during the interview. “I just kept saying take me to my baby, where is my baby? I didn’t even notice the window. I looked over it and it wasn’t water down there, it was concrete. Honestly to lose our baby this way is just unfathomable.”