#Romy #Vilsaint #Bullied #Brooklyn #Police
A family, devastated over their 12-year-old son's death, say they believe he was killed over a dare that turned deadly.
Questions still remain over the circumstances that led to fifth-grader, Romy Vilsaint dying, but his father and cousins believe he was attacked at school over the matter of a dollar.
Police are now investigating after the Brooklyn youngster lost consciousness at his home in Flatbush on Friday morning.
The NYPD are now investigating if Romy had been attacked and have declared his death as 'suspicious'.
The boy's family say he had been attacked in the two days prior to his death at school, PS 361.
Romy, who had moved with his father from Haiti to Brooklyn in 2017, told a teacher that he had been attacked and that another student had been paid a dollar following the second attack which saw him hit hard on the back of the head.
'He got jumped by two kids on Wednesday. And he got hit in the head on Thursday. There were two different attacks at school,' 28-year-old Roodwiny Exantus, Romy's cousin, told The New York Post.
The attacks both happened just after pupils had been dismissed from school for the day.
'When he reported it to the teacher, she asked who did it and why,' Exantus said. 'Romy said another kid paid him a dollar to do it.'
'He was like, 'Uncle, did I tell you today I had a bad day at school? A kid hit me in the back of the head, and I have a bad headache,'' Exantus explained. 'He said he had a slight headache and his waist hurt.'
'He didn't look good this morning. He vomited. My aunt had to help him in the shower. By 1pm. he looked bad, bad, bad,' he continued.
'My mom [Romy's aunt] found the vomit in the bucket and gave him a shower,' Exantus told the New York Daily News. 'She said he couldn't walk.'
'I wanted to take him to the hospital, but Uber was taking too long. He was begging for water. I called an ambulance. They arrived and said they were doing CPR and that's when I knew he was gone. I couldn't believe he was gone so fast.
'He was in cardiac arrest. His heart stopped,' said Exantus. 'He didn't have any medical problems. He was good until Thursday.'
'We're devastated. He was only 12 years old. He was always predicting what was going to happen next. He was a great kid. He wanted to be an actor or a basketball player.'
Romy's father, Romain Vilsaint, said his son had been extremely sick in the hours before his death.
'He was a great kid and so smart. He never had any problems with anybody. We love him very much. I don't know what to say,' Vilsaint, 59 said.
The city's medical examiner will now determine the cause of Romy’s death.
