According to the NY Daily News, Jay “Tito” Morales, 5, was critically injured in a Brooklyn fire he set Monday as revenge for being punished by his grandmother, Nancy Herrera. The child sustained third-degree burns to 70 percent of his body after he used a lighter to ignite the curtains in his grandmother’s Bushwick home, fire sources said. What is really scary about this incident is that it was said to be about revenge and to think a five-year old kid could have such a mindset as to torch his grandmother’s apartment is simply mind boggling and terrible.
The boy twice prank-called 911 recently and told cops his grandmother was dead or in trouble, sources said. To punish the boy, Herrera forbade him from going to the park Monday with two friends. According to the Daily News, as the friends left the house, Jay whispered to a 9-year-old, “I’m going burn this house down and kill grandma.” Smoke detectors alerted Herrera to the blaze, but the heat prevented her from reaching the boy, who was in a front bedroom.
Firefighters arrived moments later and rescued the child, taking him to the burn unit at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell. He clung to life last night, as his inconsolable mother and family stood by. “He’s a beautiful kid,” said his uncle Rudy Morales, 47. “The baby played with matches. … He tried to play with matches before.”
“They tried doing CPR, but he did not wake up,” Vargas said. “His legs and feet were all burned.”
A friend of the family said little Jay frequently told his grandmother he would set fire to the three-story building if he didn’t get his way. “He would say, ‘Take me to the park or I’m going to burn the house down,'” said Ramona Santos, 47, who spent Sunday at the beach with the family.
I hope this child will survive this terrible ordeal. I am at a loss for words because if, he did this to get back at his grandmother, what would he do at 15 or 20 years old? What say you?
Filed under: Jay 'Tito' Morales, Nancy Herrera
Black Political Thought 
Aw!
I hope and pray that this child survives this ordeal.
I work with children in this age group. I have had encounters in which a child has gotten angry and made a finger gun and pulled the trigger to shoot at me.
Five year olds understand a lot. But the concepts of life and death are not that clear to them.
The connection of fire burns and hurts is clear. But I would be willing to bet that this baby boy did not really have enough comprehension about the outcome of his actions.
I just hope and pray that he lives.
This is really a heartbreaking story!
Yes, I pray that he survives this ordeal. I think that there is a big difference between generations and what a five year old could conceive in my time is vastly different from today. They understand a lot, but I don’t think he understood the severity of what he did or else he would have ran out of the house once he started the fire, for example. I agree with you on all your points. Thanks for the feedback, as always.