13-Year-Old Boy Dies After Falling from High-Rise Building in New York City: 'Just a Tragedy'
A teenage boy was found dead in New York City on Monday after he apparently fell from the balcony of a high-rise building, authorities said.
Police responded to a call of an unconscious male outside 400 W. 43rd St. in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan just after 7 a.m., a spokesperson for the New York Police Department tells PEOPLE.
Upon arrival, they found a 13-year-old boy on the pavement with injuries consistent with those of a fall.
The spokesperson says that a subsequent investigation found that the boy was on a balcony on the 20th floor just before he fell.
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“It’s just a tragedy,” Mary Smith, who lives in the building, told WCBS. “But I’m wondering how he fell because our terraces are high.”
Though the circumstances surrounding the fall remain unclear, the outlet reported that police are not ruling out a suicide, and the spokesperson says there is no criminality suspected.
An investigation into the teen’s death is ongoing.