In New York City, a teenager suffering from mental illnesses allegedly started a fire in a Manhattan apartment building before jumping to his death from the same building.
Jamel Martinez, an 18-year-old from New York City, had been released from Bellevue Hospital almost a month ago. Martinez had been battling depression, according to his father James White, The New York Post reported.
“He needed help…people do not take this mental thing seriously,” White said.
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On Saturday, Martinez started the fire on the 10th floor of his apartment at the NYCHA’s East River Houses at around 4:40 p.m. Shortly after, he jumped off the roof to his death, according to authorities.
The fire was quickly knocked out by the FDNY shortly after it was started.
One neighbor was at the scene on Saturday and said Martinez had just graduated from high school.
“He was a sweet kid. Respectable, decent, loving, and caring,” the 10th-floor neighbor said to New York Daily News. “Just a beautiful kid.”
White, 53, told the Post that he had begged the hospital to keep his son admitted. He said that his son had “changed” over the past couple of years and that the pressures of graduating from high school weighed heavily on him.
“This is my son who did this. This is my son,” White said. “He wasn’t supposed to leave Bellevue Hospital. I told Bellevue Hospital not to release him, take him to a program where he could get his mind right.”
White doesn’t live in the building but was at the scene pacing back and forth, the Post reported. He mentioned that his son was on prescription medication for his mental illness.
“He went through something where his mind just relapsed. He ran away from home,” White said. “He was on the news already for a missing child.”
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White said he first learned of what had happened from his daughter.
“My daughter called me and said the house is burning up and it’s on Citizen app and that she thinks Jamel jumped off the roof and he might be dead,” he said, his voice crackling.
A 12-year-old boy said that he heard a loud banging sound when he saw Martinez hit the car.
“His mother was crying,” the kid told the Post. “I feel really sad.”
White shared that he thinks his son’s mental health began declining because of exposure to drugs and the street. However, before he was exposed to drugs, White said his son was into technology and computers.
“He was a good kid,” White said. “He was a nice, warm sweet kid.”
