A Tarrant County family is pleading for charges to be dropped against a man accused of accidentally killing his five-year-old nephew in a crash.<\/p>\n
Authorities say on Wednesday, 24-year-old Fabian Riojas tried to drive through a blocked railroad crossing, causing his car to be hit by a TRE train.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, NBC 5 spoke with the boy\u2019s father, who is calling for his brother to be set free.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know if he\u2019d had a chance, he would have given his life for him,\u201d said Jon Martinez.<\/p>\n
Martinez said his five-year-old son Emilio was full of life and a ball of constant energy. Martinez said his son was close to his uncle Fabian Riojas from the time he was born.<\/p>\n
\u201cWords can\u2019t explain how much I miss him,\u201d said Martinez. \u201cThis is really sudden. I was at work when this was told to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family said on Wednesday afternoon, Riojas was giving Emilio a ride home in his Dodge Charger when he came to a blocked railroad crossing on Elliot Reeder Road in Haltom City.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, it was trying to beat the train,\u201d said Martinez. \u201cAnd unfortunately, the train won.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fort Worth police said Riojas went past the barriers and tried to drive across the tracks. His car was hit by a TRE commuter train, sending it crashing off the side of the road.<\/p>\n
Police said Riojas was hospitalized, and five-year-old Emilio died from his injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did it, and he wasn\u2019t so lucky, and unfortunately, he had to pay with my son\u2019s life,\u201d said Martinez.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Fort Worth PD announced Riojas is being charged with Manslaughter-Traffic Accident in his nephew\u2019s death and is now being held in the Fort Worth Jail.<\/p>\n
Riojas\u2019s family said the criminal penalty is not what Emilio would have wanted, and while his uncle made a mistake, they believed he should go free.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last thing I want is people to think that my brother\u2019s a monster, because I can assure you that my brother loved him more than anything,\u201d said Martinez. \u201cAnd if I can forgive him, I hope everyone else can too.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBC 5 has asked the Fort Worth District Attorney\u2019s office for a response to the family\u2019s calls to drop the charge against Riojas. We are waiting to hear back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Tarrant County family is pleading for charges to be dropped against a man accused of accidentally killing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,122],"class_list":["post-59486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-tarrant-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}