Teen given 3 1/2-7 years in prison for setting boy on fire
Rayfiq Tiggle, 16, lit an 11-year-old boy on fire with hand sanitizer and a cigarette lighter.
Just before he was to be sentenced Friday for setting an 11-year-old boy on fire last year in West Philadelphia, the teenage defendant told the court that it had been an accident, apologized to the victim's mother, and asked a Common Pleas Court judge for forgiveness.
"I am very sorry for what I did," Rayfiq Tiggle, 16, of West Philadelphia, who was charged as an adult, told Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner.
He said he hadn't intended to injure the boy. The incident, he said, was an accident that came about because he had been playing with a cigarette lighter.
Tiggle apologized to the victim's mother, Kristal Manago, and then asked the judge: "Can the court please forgive me?"
Manago, 36, immediately blurted out: "I do!"
Lerner, however, said it wasn't his job to forgive Tiggle, but to "demonstrate understanding" for what happened.
"I do not believe this was at all an accident," he told Tiggle before sentencing him to 3 1/2 to 7 years in state prison.
The judge said he believes Tiggle probably didn't realize the extent of the injuries he was to inflict upon the younger boy, Glenn Spears, and that he believes Tiggle is sincerely sorry.
Spears suffered second-degree burns and was treated and released from Mercy Philadelphia Hospital the same day.
The judge said he recognizes that Tiggle has serious mental-health issues, and because of that he will recommend that Tiggle be placed at the State Correctional Institution at Pine Grove in Central Pennsylvania, which specializes in treating young adult offenders.
After his prison term, Tiggle will do four years' probation under the supervision of a mental-health unit, the judge said.
Tiggle has not been diagnosed with any specific disorder. The judge said it could be because he hasn't been fully examined.
It was about 5:30 p.m. on July 8 when Tiggle approached the younger boy on the porch of a house on Hazel Avenue near 60th Street.
Spears, who is now 12, testified at a preliminary hearing in Family Court last year that he was visiting a 9-year-old friend at that house when Tiggle walked by with hand sanitizer. The victim said the 9-year-old asked Tiggle for some hand sanitizer and Tiggle sprayed some on his hand.
Tiggle, the victim said, then sprayed hand sanitizer on the left side of his body, took out a BIC lighter, and lit the flammable fluid.
Spears, who had been shirtless that summer day because he just came back from a pool, said he swiped himself down, then rushed home.
Assistant District Attorney Namratha Ravikant had asked for a sentence of five to 10 years in prison. She said the crime was random and that Tiggle and the victim had "no beef" with each other.
David Rosen, of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, said he didn't see the benefits of a long incarceration.
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