Outside the charred home of Kameer Badmus family members remembered a bright athletic 4-year-old.
"That's my nephew. It hurt me. There's nothing I could do because what I practice, what I believe in, he's in good hands right now," Kameer's uncle Ibrahim Elemikan said.
"I'm still in shock in the sense that I saw him two weeks ago and I got a call yesterday that he died and I couldn't believe it," grandfather Rasheed Elemikan said.
Badmus and a babysitter were inside the home last night when a fire broke out, trapping the little boy in a second floor bedroom.
A neighbor, Rosa Melendez, watched as flames engulfed the house.
"The whole house was just in fire and one girl was screaming that the baby was in the house," Melendez said.
Melendez and other neighbors have been collecting donations for Kameer's family.
A small memorial of stuffed animals has been growing by the hour, as friends and relatives are trying to come to grips with a life lost too soon.
"We're just trying to do what we can as a community to help out; we don't have much, but whatever we can gather, we'll appreciate," neighbor Willis Wooten said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but neighbors report hearing a loud bang from a second floor window ac unit.
The 18-year-old babysitter remains hospitalized with burns to her hands and face.
