Malcolm-Jamal Warner died at beach where signs warned about drowning

Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s death Sunday occurred after he and his 8-year-old daughter went swimming at a Costa Rican beach where he somehow missed, or ignored, multiple signs warning about “rip currents here all year round” and of a “high risk of drowning,” according to photos obtained by TMZ.

The photos show that the signs were posted at the main entry point for Playa Grande, a popular tourist destination on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, south of Limon. The signs also tell visitors to “keep the water level at your knees” and that “only advanced surfers” should go any further into the water. The owner of a local boutique hotel also told the New York Times that the beach was dotted with red flags and that Costa Rican Tourism Board had posted a number of warning signs there.

The 54-year-old Warner, who shot to fame as a teenager when he played Theo Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992, was swimming at a beach when he was “apparently swept away by a current” around 2 p.m. on Sunday, the New York Times reported, citing a statement by the nation’s Judicial Investigation Department.

ABC News also reported that Warner was swimming with his 8-year-old daughter. Police told ABC News that surfers spotted the actor and his daughter struggling in the water and dove in to help. A surfer used his board to bring Warner’s daughter to safety and a volunteer lifeguard pulled Warner and another surfer to shore, where Warner was given 45 minutes of CPR, according to police.

The New York Times said that the beach is known for its strong surf, which makes it popular with surfers, but also for its dangerously strong rip currents.

“The accident occurred in an area frequently visited by surfers because it has strong waves,” Andrea Sánchez Campos, the owner of Faith Glamping Dome, told the New York Times in a phone interview. She said the sea had been looking unusually rough and brownish in color in the days before Warner’s drowning.  “The currents were extremely strong, and this was evident from the debris left on the beach,” she said.

Playa Grande is so well known for its rip currents that Chris Houser, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Waterloo in Canada, has taken students there to study them, the New York Times reported. Houser told the New York Times that research has shown the rip currents there to be “extremely strong,” able to sweep people offshore at a rate of six feet per second.

Unfortunately, there were no lifeguards on duty at Playa Grande that day, due to limited resources, according to the New York Times. Mike Geist, the vice president of Caribbean Guard, a group of about 35 volunteer lifeguards who patrol three beaches in the area, said the group had temporarily moved its team to another beach that draws more people and had recently been the site of several rescues and a fatality.

“We had to make this judgment call, and it turned out to be bad,” Geist said, lamenting that his organization did not have the funds to staff the beach every day. “It sickens my stomach that we weren’t there, because I can’t tell you how many days I personally spent there on that post, in that guard stand, and because of stupid money, you know, and we just did not have enough people to do it.”

The lifeguard program, as under-resourced as it is, was put in place due to drownings at beaches in Costa Rica, Houser told the New York Times. About 50 people per year drown in rip currents in Costa Rica, and about two out of every five are tourists. Unfortunately, lifeguards can’t be there “at all times” and “they can’t cover all the beaches,” Houser said. “There’s just not a lot of investment that is being made.”

News of Warner’s death shocked Hollywood and his fans, many of whom say he “was like family” because they had grown up watching him play Bill Cosby’s son on the groundbreaking family sitcom.

“This is a real gut punch. I can’t believe it,” one person wrote below an online story by People about Warner’s death.

“This really hurt my heart as it feels as if I lost a family member,” another person said. “We watched him grow up from his Theo character to a successful man. Almost like watching a younger brother or your own child. My sympathies to his family. I’m still in shock.”

As this person said, Warner had appeared to avoid the self-destructive behavior and turmoil that falls on a lot of actors who begin their Hollywood careers as children or teenagers. After the New Jersey-born son of a single mother rose to fame playing Theo, he built a thriving and acclaimed career as an actor and director in TV and in streaming series. He also recorded music, performed and, last year, launched a podcast, “Not All Hood,” in which he and his co-hosts discussed Black culture.

In addition to his daughter, Warner also is survived by his wife. On another podcast this spring, Warner said he had sought to keep his wife and daughter out of the limelight and to not make public their identities.

TMZ reported that an autopsy was conducted and Warners remains had been turned over to his family. His body is scheduled to leave Costa Rica on Thursday and arrive in Los Angeles Friday morning.