Newly released video appears to disprove a Connecticut mother’s claims that her son was targeted by bullies when he was hit in the face with a burning ball, instead showing a seeming accident as kids play dangerously with fire.
Backyard surveillance footage shows the events of April 24, when six-year-old Dominick Justino Krankall suffered second and third-degree burns while playing with other kids in Bridgeport.
The video was released after police concluded there was no wrongdoing in the case, and shows a group of boys, including Dominick, dousing a soccer ball with gasoline, setting it ablaze, and then kicking it around the yard.
Dominick’s mother Maria Rua had previously claimed in media interviews that her son was intentionally set on fire by neighborhood bullies, telling DailyMail.com last month that he ran home screaming ‘Mommy, they lit me on fire.’
The mother and other family members claimed that the other boys had lit a gasoline-soaked ball on fire and thrown it in Dominick’s face — a scene the newly released video does not depict.
Rua also claimed that her son had been terrorized by their eight-year-old neighbor and his 11-year-old brother for more than a year, without naming the children.
‘These kids are bullies and physically abusive. They even threatened that they would light me on fire. They are angry kids and they are going to hurt someone,’ she said at the time.
The case gained national attention, and a GoFundMe page for Dominick — which prominently touted the family’s bullying claims — has raised more than $500,000.
There was even a parade of first responders in honor of Dominick as he recovered in hospital, and the young boy was invited onto the field before a New York Yankees game.
