Student Plunges to Death at Prep School
Updated 3:34 PM EST, Thu, Feb 19, 2009
A 17-year-old student at a prestigious Manhattan prep school may have jumped to his death, police said.
The teen plunged from an open window on the 11th-floor dance studio at The Dalton School on the upper East Side.
The school was in session and young children were playing on the sidewalk when the unidentified 17-year-old junior snuck into the empty dance studio and opened the top portion of the window and jumped out, cops told the Daily News.
"I heard a loud bang," Dalton security guard Michael Brown told the Daily News. "It sounded like a gunshot ... he was just dead."
Police believe the death was a suicide, the New York Post reported.
The boy's brother also attends the elite private school, cops said.
The 17-year-old won academic awards and was heavily involved in school activities.
Faculty and staff could be seen grieving inside the Manhattan private school. The school has notified parents, calling it a "tragic accident."
Dalton has 1,300 students in grades kindergarten through high school and was founded in 1919.
It is located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, near Central Park and the Guggenheim Museum. The K-12th grade private school is the alma mater of such celebrities as Claire Danes, Mary Stuart Masterson, Sean Lennon and Anderson Cooper.
First Published: Feb 18, 2009 11:59 AM EST
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