12
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JUNE 30, 2019
Missing Brooklyn YouTube
streamer found dead: NYPD Continued from page 1
in the numbers,” she said. “1,500
signatures is where we can really
declare victory.”
The shelters fi gure to occupy
two buildings — a 12-story tower
and its 11-story neighbor — which
were originally intended as market
rate rentals before the city
brokered a deal with the developers
to house homeless families
there.
Anti-shelter advocates raised
concerns in their petition about
the inevitable increased population
density in the neighborhood,
the potential impact on local
schools, and the high price the city
fi gures to pay to rent the space.
Local Councilman Brad
Lander (D–Park Slope) defended
the shelters — which are the
brainchild of the Department of
Homeless Services, not the City
Council — arguing that the developments
would bring more
residents whether they were
used for shelters or for private
residents.
Additionally, Lander committed
to providing the nearby
public schools with additional
resources to help integrate any
new students who enrolled as a
result of the shelters.
Park Slope residents fl ocked to sign a petition supporting two proposed Fourth
Avenue homeless shelters, which quickly outgrew another petition opposing
the refuges. Google
Paying market-rate prices for
the units is unavoidable, according
to Lander, who said the city
does not own nearly enough housing
units to dent the homeless
problem. Still, critics charged
that the agreement is providing
an undue windfall to the properties’
developers, who stand to
charge the city almost $11 million
annually. Price started the
petition before the city unveiled
the project’s steep price tag, but
called the cost-critique unwarranted,
speculating that spending
hawks were using the criticism
to hide anti-shelter bias.
“If we’re really talking about
technical, fi nancial details, it
makes me wonder — would this
ever apply to another building
that was both useful and necessary
to a community?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
The major point of tension for
many anti-shelter demonstrators,
however, is the potential negative
impact on local property values.
Shruti Kapoor — who authored
the anti-shelter petition in May —
questioned Department of Homeless
Service reps’ claims that
shelters do not affect the value of
neighboring homes.
Desmond
Amorah
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A Downtown Brooklyn resident
and popular YouTube personality
was found dead on Monday,
just a few days after posting a
disturbing online video and then
vanishing , police confi rmed.
Cops discovered 29-year-old
Desmond Amofah — best known
by his YouTube channel, Etika,
where he posted videos of himself
playing video games — in the
East River off Manhattan’s Pier
16 at 6:18 p.m., just a few hundred
yards downstream of the Brooklyn
Bridge.
However, police reportedly
located items belonging to Amofah
on the Manhattan Bridge, including
his wallet, identifi cation
cards, a Nintendo Switch gaming
console, his laptop bag, and
clothes, a law enforcement source
told Inside Edition . A spokesman
for the department could not confi
rm those details.
An investigation by the city’s
Chief Medical Examiner concluded
that Amofah killed himself
by drowning, according to
spokeswoman Aja Worthy-Davis.
Amofah was last heard alive
during a phone conversation on
June 19, which occurred shortly
after he posted a Youtube video
in which he discussed suicide
and his struggles with mental illness.
“I wasn’t suicidal before, but
one thing I didn’t realize was the
walls were closing
around me so fast. I
really had no intention
of killing myself,
but I would always
push it too far. I
guess I am mentally
ill,” Desmond Amofah
said in a June
19 video deleted by YouTube, but
which pro-gamer Rod Breslau
preserved on Twitter .
The late online personality
was cuffed last April after
he took to Instagram and livestreamed
an alleged threat to kill
himself inside his apartment,
which caused police to barricade
the street outside his home for
hours.
The police’s investigation into
Amofah’s death remains ongoing,
a department spokesman
told this paper.
SHELTER