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'He Was A Really Good Kid': Friends, Family Mourn Teen Who Died In Bushwick Building Fall
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 26, 2017
Modified Mar 26, 2017
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By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 26, 2017
Modified Mar 26, 2017
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The 13-year-old boy who died after he jumped off a Brooklyn rooftop on Friday may have believed that police were coming when he fell to his death.
Rame Pierre-Louis and his friend, Karlos Adams, 15, were on the roof of 57 Grove Street in Bushwick when they fell between 40 and 50 feet at about around 5:30 p.m. Reports suggest that the pair were trying to leap to another building, and that Karlos reportedly fell on top of Rame. They were both taken to Kings County Hospital, where Rame was pronounced dead and Karlos remains hospitalized with serious injuries.
The News spoke to Karlos' father, who told the paper that his son told him the two were being chased by cops when they jumped. "They thought there was another building next to it, but it wasn't. When they jumped off that building, they fell straight to the ground," Kenneth Adams said.
Karlos also said that they had been smoking pot, according to Adams. However, the police denied that officers were chasing the teens, telling the News, "There’s nothing to this. We went through all the activity in that precinct for the entire day. There were no radio runs to that address, only the aided call (when the teens fell)."
Rame lived less than a mile away from the building, on Wilson Avenue. His friends gathered outside his home, and a teacher, Jennifer Ramos, told the Post, “He was a good kid, really engaged. He liked to goof around a lot. He liked to sing, make silly faces, dance. He always walked down the hall with music on. He tried to make the best of life. It didn’t matter that something was tough, he always tries to make the best of any situation."
Residents of 57 Grove Street say that teens frequently sneak into the building and hang out on the roof. WCBS 2 shared footage of chairs on the roof:
The owner, Nasir Brown, insisted to WCBS 2, "I’ve never heard of someone trying to jump off my building... I don’t know if they were play-fighting and one ended up tussling over, or if they were are actually trying play and like to dare each other to jump over."
There are signs on 57 Grove Street's entrance warning that trespassers will be subject to arrest.
A relative of Rame's told the Post that the boy's father was devastated, "He don’t want to live no more. Rame was a good kid from a loving home. For him to end like this is devastating to his whole family. It’s unbelievable."
Tagged
brooklyn
bushwick
fatal fall
karlos adams
rame pierre-louis
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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