The father of an 8-month-old boy who died in an San Antonio house fire was subdued by a Taser at the scene of a blaze on Sunday. Relatives said the man was trying to save his baby son.
Eight people – five adults and three children – safely escaped the burning one-story, ranch-style home about 2:40 a.m., authorities told the San Antonio Express-News.
The fire started in the bedroom of the home and quickly spread, causing an estimated $90,000 in damage, according to the San Antonio Fire Department. While it's not considered suspicious, the cause of the blaze remains under investigation.
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“Everybody was asleep,” said Sasha Wallace, one of the adults who escaped from the home. The surviving children, she said, were “terrified, scared and don't know what to do.”
There were conflicting reports about the father, who was not identified, re-entering the home, according to the Express-News. Odell Wallace, the father of the man tasered and the grandfather of the deceased child, said his son tried to run back into the burning home to save his son but was restrained when he was shot with a Taser by San Antonio police.
A police spokesman told the newspaper that the infant's body had already been discovered, “and the scene was being processed when (the) male tried to forcibly enter the scene.”
Miller told WOAI-TV he and his wife Barbara tried to save the baby from a burning bedroom.
"I busted this door in, and couldn't get through to save my grandbaby, but if I would have got him, I would have gave my life for him", said grandmother Barbara Miller.
The family even tried getting into the bedroom through a window. Odell Miller, who is retired from the U.S. Army, said he had no idea the 8-month-old baby and his 3-year-old sister were in the bedroom alone at first.
"When my wife first was trying to break this door down, she thought my son was in there also, and that they were both asleep," he said.
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The family held a vigil for the boy, named Darion, Sunday evening outside the gutted home. Family members said the boy had just learned how to crawl and had already left an impression on his numerous cousins, some of whom could be heard crying loudly at the vigil, which attracted about 30 people.
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