A New York City teen had jumped to his death after setting his Manhattan family apartment on fire Saturday.
18-year-old Jamel Martinez leaped to his end off the roof of the apartment complex at around 4:40 p.m. and landed on a parked car.
Martinez’s distraught dad told reporters that the teen struggled with mental illness and depression during the last couple of years.
“He was a good kid. He was a nice, warm sweet kid,” James White said. “This was my son who did this. This was my son.”
White added that Martinez was recently released from Bellevue Hospital despite pleas he shouldn’t.
“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.”
“He went through something where his mind just relapsed. He ran away from home. He was on the news already for a missing child. He needed help…people do not take this mental thing seriously.”
The father said that high school graduation weighed on his teen son who was, before getting disturbed, fond of technology and computers.
