Polk County Sheriff's deputies arrested a man Wednesday, April 4 for resisting arrest after he refused orders to come out of a burning home, forcing deputies to go in after him.
- Charles Wayne ran into burning house and refused to come out
- Wayne being questioned by fire marshal about house fire
- 12 other people lived in the home; all got out unharmed
Polk County Fire Rescue units first responded to the fire at the home, located in the 700 block of West Daughtery Road in Lakeland, around 11 a.m.
A witness to the fire, Diana Stewart, captured the scene on her phone camera: tenants of the burning home driving their car up to the structure, then running around the front yard, while in the backyard one of the tenants ran back inside the home to save her dog.
When she turned off her phone, she said a man deputies identified as Charles Wayne pulled a machete out and approached her.
“He picked up a knife around this big with little holes in it and he started coming toward me," Stewart said. "I just ran. I just took off and I told the fireman."
When she returned after alerting deputies, she said Wayne had run back into the burning home. Deputies yelled at him to get out, but they said he refused.
Two deputies then ran inside the burning home and got him out.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has charged him with resisting an officer without violence. He’s also being questioned by the state fire marshal about the fire.
“Anytime we have those actions going on, we have to make sure it wasn’t arson," said Bobby Bohn, the Battalion Chief on scene. "It still could’ve been accidental. We got fire marshal coming in to determine that,”
Firefighters believe the house was a boarding home, with at least 12 people living inside. All of them except Wayne escaped unharmed.
Wayne was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, along with the two deputies who went into the home to get him.
The sheriff’s office said one of those deputies will be staying in the hospital overnight, because he also went into the burning home a second time to save a dog.