Bystanders Record 8-Year-Old Boy On Fire Instead Of Helping Him

Sanquon King suffered burns across more than 38 percent of his body.

Atlanta, GA – An eight-year-old boy is in critical condition after bystanders saw him catch on fire and recorded his frantic screams instead of helping him (video below).

“Lay down in the grass and roll,” a woman hollered at the burning child from behind her cell phone camera. “Lay down in the grass.”

The incident occurred on Oct. 19, when eight-year-old Sanquon King accidentally set himself on fire as he was playing with a lighter and lighter fluid at the Covington Housing Authority Units, WSB reported.

The video showed the desperate little boy pleading for help as he ran towards other people in the grassy area outside a complex building.

Instead of helping him, at least one woman pulled out her cell phone and began recording the child’s agony while she barked orders at other bystanders.

“Get some water or something!” she yelled. “Lay down!”

“He’s hollering and screaming and begging for help, and they’re recording it,” the boy’s mother, Willtrivius King, told WSB.

King said she believes her son would have died if two heroic neighbors, Cynterra Jordan and Crystal Parks, hadn’t rushed in to save him.

They took the little boy’s shoes off, then rolled him on the ground to smother the flames.

"I can't wait to see them hug them, kiss them, love on them. I'm so thankful for them," King said of her Good Samaritan neighbors. “They actually saved my baby’s life.”

Sanquon was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he remains heavily sedated in the intensive care unit.

He suffered burns to over 38 percent of his body.

The video of her son burning alive was later posted to social media, King told WSB.

“They actually put it on Facebook,” she said. “They sent it out to people.”

At one point in the video, the woman recording made a comment to another bystander who apparently found the scene amusing.

“Come on, Lana,” she said, according to WSB. “That’s not funny.”

King said she was dumbfounded when she learned that adults in the area had done nothing to help her son.

“Just to watch. Like, grown people standing, watching, not trying to help, not trying to do nothing,” King said. “That’s cruelty to kids. You don’t do kids like that.”

Police said they do not plan to charge any bystanders for their inaction.

No. 1-16

That is what society has come down to now - with the prevalence of camera phones and people constantly wanting to be the first to post anything on the Internet and get credit for being the first, instead of being caring, helping human beings. And that is starting to be true almost everywhere in a lot of circumstances, no matter who the victim is or who needs help.


In the past I would have been stunned by the inaction of the bystanders but no more. To watch the child burn while recording it and then posting on facebook shows far we've regressed as a society. I remember the article of the police officer who was shot multiple times while sitting in his patrol car and bystanders rushed to his car, not to offer help, but to record it so they can post it online, all so they can count up the "likes". This poor boy in the article deserves better. I hope when he recovers he can move to a better neighborhood.


people are so heartless now, it's all about me, me, me. that poor child would have burned alive if those real people hadn't saved him. I hope those videotaping him and commenting and doing nothing are named in the paper, posted around the neighborhood something , Karma's a bitch and i do wish it on their heads.


Its just a cultural thing. Some cultures are just so jaded to cruelty and suffering that they can't feel any more. Sorry, but the names these people were given is indicative of a tribal culture that is so backward that it is almost primitive.


This isn't a cultural thing !!!

These people are disgusting parasitic insects, who have NO relation to any culture or creed!!!

How could any human being watch an 8 year old child burn half to death while they video tapped and screamed recommendations as the child ran around on fire, screaming for help!!!

This story isn't just an appalling report on this child's neighborhood, it's an horrific report on a tiny segment of people, who don't deserve to live in any segment of American society!!

I can't imagine what some members of that community may do, when they find out who these people were, who just stood there videotaping a child on fire, instead of attempting to render some kind of aid.