© Viorel Florescu/Staff Photographer
Parents waiting to pick up their children at Grant School in Dumont after a 10-year-old boy jumped from a second-story window. He later died.
Parents waiting to pick up their children at Grant School in Dumont after a 10-year-old boy jumped from a second-story window. He later died.
Borough Police Chief Joseph L. Faulborn Jr. said the boy, taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, had succumbed to his injuries around 5 p.m.
The boy jumped from the window around noon, police said. Authorities have declined to provide the boy's name or further details of the fatal incident.
The drop from the window to a concrete sidewalk appeared to be about 25 feet.
Authorities have declined to provide details of what led to the tragedy. But the boy may have jumped after a dispute earlier in the morning with another boy over a chess game, according to a student who was in the classroom at the time.
The student added that before the boy jumped, he wrote a note that another student then passed to an adult in the room. A law enforcement source on Friday evening confirmed that the boy wrote a note before he jumped. The source did not describe it as a suicide note but said suicide is among the possibilities being investigated.
Elmer Pascia, said that he was removing snow from in front of his house across the street from the school when the boy jumped. He did not see the boy fall, he said, but afterward the boy appeared to be conscious and moving. A number of people immediately ran to help the child, while at the window above, a woman appeared frantic, Pascia said.
Superintendent of Schools Emanuele Triggiano declined to provide details of the incident Friday afternoon. Earlier in the day, he called the incident a "terrible thing," adding, "The most important thing is to make sure that the child is in our prayers. We just hope that everything works out for him."
Comment: Suicide at an elementary school? A place that is supposed to nurture and protect children, no less. According to NBC, the child got into an argument with a classmate while playing chess earlier that morning - the same child he passed the note to. Children in our society don't seem to know how to properly express their frustrations, anxieties and other emotions due to the lack of teaching those things at home or society-at-large. What a sad state of affairs.