9-year-old Damori Miles dies in jump off Brooklyn apartment, may have been imitating video game
BY Matthew Lysiak and Alison Gendar
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Updated Wednesday, April 15th 2009, 8:43 PM
Friends say Damori Miles jumped to his death imitating a character from the video game, ‘Smackdown Raw’.
A 9-year-old wrestling fan jumped off his Brooklyn apartment roof wearing a homemade parachute in a fatal imitation of his favorite video game character, friends said.
The broken body of Damori Miles was found on the ground outside the Albany Houses about 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Wrapped around his body was the string and plastic bag he used for the parachute, police sources said. The boy died at Interfaith Medical Center an hour later.
“It’s terrible. The kids try to imitate what they see and they think they can fly,” said family friend Sumore Murrel, 29.
The third-grader was supposed to have a Tuesday night play date with Murrel’s two children, Shakar, 11, and Kevin, 9, but never showed. “His older sister came knocking on the door looking for him at 7:30. She had no idea he was dead. None of us did,” Murrel said.
It turned out the boy, who received special education instruction, had left his 10th floor apartment and walked up to the Crown Heights building’s roof.
Shakar, Damori’s best friend, said his pal was imitating his favorite PlayStation2 game, “WWE SmackDown vs Raw.”
“He tried to do a swan dive like Jeff Harding does in ‘SmackDown.’ That was his favorite game. He played it all the time,” Shakar said.
“That was what he was trying to do. If I would have seen him up there, I would have told him not to do it.”
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This story hits me in a variety of ways. First off, it’s always sad that a boy as young as he lost his life. However, the writers for this story seemed to have gone out on several limbs.
They begin by publishing the wrong title for the video game, as it should have been “SmackDown! vs. RAW”. That right there should tell you how little research that the writers put into this entry.
Secondly, if they would have looked into this game, they would have known that Jeff Hardy does not jump off of elevated platforms with a parachute. Nor does Jeff Hardy literally “fly” around like Superman.