New York Post89%
Family friend charged year after 'nightmare' illegal July Fourth fireworks killed 8-year-old girl 51%
By Patrick Reilly35%
7/2/2026, 11:56:49 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Confirmation Bias, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 46.8% saturation with 167 hits. Analysis detected 656 faulty-reasoning hits from 357 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.7% and a BS Rank of 51% (10,491 of 21,198 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 50.50% of the article peer group.
A California man has been charged nearly a year after an illegal July Fourth fireworks blast killed an 8-year-old girl in front of her family, according to police.
Earl Decastro, 47, was charged with involuntary manslaughter Wednesday for allegedly setting off the display that malfunctioned and resulted in the death of Jasmine Nguyen, 8, at a neighborhood Independence Day celebration in Buena Park last year.
Jasmine, her mother and 7-year-old sister were in Decastro’s driveway watching him set off fireworks in the street for more than an hour, according to the Orange County Prosecutors Office.
For his grand finale, he ignited an illegal $400 “cake” — which contained professional-grade explosives that require a permit to buy or use — that malfunctioned and fired mortar shells directly into the driveway, sending partygoers running for their lives inside DeCastro’s home, prosecutors said.
“It happened so quick.
A fun day of friends turns into a nightmare,” Jasmine’s mother, Haley Nguyen recalled in an interview with the Orange County Register last week.
“Some people were bleeding through their shoes.”
“I can’t hug her or hear her voice,” Nguyen said.
“It’s a lot quieter.”
Despite her crippling grief, the mother had said that she did not want to see Decastro charged.
“I’m not pushing for any charges,” Haley Nguyen said.
“It really was an accident.”
But prosecutors disagreed and Decastro was charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter, recklessly setting fire causing great bodily injury and possession of over 100 pounds of illegal fireworks.
It was not immediately clear why it took a year for charges to be filed against Decastro, who faces up to six years in prison if convicted.
“There is nothing accidental about buying and lighting illegal fireworks,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement.
“An eight-year-old little girl is dead and the man who killed her is going to be held responsible.
A few seconds of fun is not worth a lifetime of trauma and the loss of a beautiful little girl who never had the chance to grow up,” he added.
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100%flagged-word coverageTodd Spitzer
68 attributed words42% of attributed speech86% writer coverage
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