San Antonio baby clinging to life with gunshot wound to chest
SAN ANTONIO (KABB) - A grieving mother is asking for your prayers as her one-month-old baby boy clings to life with a gunshot wound to the chest.
Baby Armani Cazares, born Feb. 25, has been in intensive care at University Hospital since Saturday morning, shot by his mother's 19-year-old boyfriend, police said. The family has now set up this GoFundMe Page to help cover medical costs.
"It's a nightmare. My son was here and now he's not," said Armani's mother Daisy Delacruz, 18. "Now the doctors are telling me he's not going to make it. That there's no hope. That he's practically brain dead."
Delacruz's boyfriend Lance Tello Jr., 19, didn't only shoot Armani, police said. He's also accused of shooting his own mother and 14-year-old sister inside his family's home on Five Forks Drive around 2:00 a.m. April 4. He's currently at the Bexar County Jail with bonds set at a combined $500,000.
"I was angry at him," Delacruz said. "And then my anger just turned into sadness because I loved him. And I thought he loved me and my son."
Delacruz said Tello worked six days a week at the Maruchan Texas Inc. ramen noodle factory. This past Friday, though, he told her he was feeling stressed at work and asked that she pick him up early, she said. When they got to his house, she said he seemed normal and even asked to feed Armani.
"(Suddenly) his face changes and he’s telling me he doesn’t want to hold the baby anymore," she remembered, describing how he became very quiet and decided to take a shower.
"He just flipped. He was normal and then he just turned into someone else," she said. "Completely silent. Completely silent with a Bible."
Delacruz and Tello started dating when she was four months pregnant. Even though he wasn't Armani's biological father, he acted like a father to the newborn, she said. They didn't live together, but she and Armani would stay over on weekends.
Eventually, this past Friday night turned to Saturday morning. It was now 2:00 a.m.
Delacruz and Baby Armani were in Tello's bedroom.
"And I'm talking to him and telling him, 'I'm sorry you're feeling like this, but can you just talk to me?' He still doesn't talk to me."
He then stood up and stared at himself in the mirror for about a minute or two, she said. "I then see him reach in between the mattresses and I see him pull out a gun. He has no emotion in his face, he's just looking at me with this evil look."
She watched as he turned away from the mirror, cocked the gun and pointed it at her, she said. "And he's looking at my baby, and I'm telling him, 'You're not going to shoot my baby.' But before I could push him away from me, the gun goes off. And then I'm deaf. And then I turn around and I see my son. My son is on the floor and he's turning blue."
Police said Tello next shot his 49-year-old mother and his 14-year-old sister. Both are expected to recover. Officers arrested him soon after the shooting several blocks away from his house.
As for baby Armani, his future remains uncertain.
"They're telling me, 'Whenever you give us the okay, we'll take him off the ventilator,'" she said. "I'm not going to do that anytime soon. I don't want to let go just yet."
Delacruz said she considers him her miracle baby. "When I saw him, I instantly fell in love. I was told I couldn’t have kids, so when I found out I was pregnant with him, it was a miracle."
Her message to everyone reading this?
"Keep praying. I know there's still hope."
