A California father who was arrested after he threw his 7-year-old son over the railing of a tour boat said they were just having fun.

Sloane Briles, 35, said he did nothing wrong and denied witness accounts that he hit his son before throwing him into the Newport Harbor. People on three nearby boats rushed to fish the boy out of the water, said a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's department. Briles also jumped in the water, but his son had already been rescued by then.

I did nothing except jump in the water with my kid, he told KTLA on Tuesday.

Briles, the father of two boys from a previous marriage, was on the sightseeing boat with his girlfriend and his other 6-year-old son.

He was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment and resisting arrest but was released Monday after posting bond, the OC Register reported.

The 7-year-old was obviously upset, sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino told the paper. He hits him and throws him overboard.

Jennifer Burrelli, his girlfriend, told the New York Daily News, that he's just a goofball who's always roughhousing with his sons at the pool, adding, He wasn't thinking.

She said Briles immediately jumped in after his son and was only five feet away when the boy was rescued.

His sons are his whole life, Burrelli said. He would never ever do anything to hurt them on purpose.

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