An 18-year-old NYU freshman was stark naked and apparently high on drugs when he plummeted 15 floors to his death early Monday from the roof of a dormitory, police sources and students said.
The aspiring rapper, identified as Titan Lee-Hai, fell from New York University’s Third North dorm in the East Village at 3:20 a.m. on the semester’s first day of class, cops and university officials said.
Lee-Hai confronted fellow freshman Shazim Khurshid, 19, in an elevator just before falling — or jumping — to his death.
“I met him in the elevator and he was completely naked,” Khurshid said. “He punched me in the face.”
Lee-Hai plummeted 15 floors to his death early Monday from the roof of this NYU dormitory.
Khurshid said the student asked him where he was.
“I didn’t respond. He looked like he was on drugs, a lot of drugs,” he said.
After Khurshid got off on the first floor, he reported Lee-Hai’s behavior to security. He said he heard the fire alarm sound a few minutes later.
“If you pull the fire alarm all the doors are open,” he said. “He pulled the alarm, he went to the roof and that’s when he jumped off the building.”
New York University freshman Shazim Khurshid (pictured) says Titan Lee-Hai asked him where he was moments before his death.
(Photo Credit: James Keivom/New York Daily News)
“It was pretty obvious that he was not in his senses,” Khurshid said.
Another student said Lee-Hai, who was from Trinidad and Tobago, was on mushrooms.
“He wasn’t a troubled kid,” the young woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “It was a bad trip. He was alone, just chillin’.”
“Everybody’s freaked out,” she said, adding that the liberal studies major, whose room was on the 12th floor of the dorm on Third Ave. near 12th St., was “a good kid.”
Lee-Hai fell to his death about 3:20 a.m. Monday at NYU, police sources say. (Photo Credit: James Keivom/New York Daily News)
Lee-Hai’s roommate, Rohan Makle, said he was “high on some kind of substance.”
“He was great,” Makle said, declining to comment further.
Some of the videos on Lee-Hai’s Facebook page for his band Trizzykidd have been liked by more than 5,500 users.
NYU officials said the university was investigating and counselors were available for students.
Titan Lee-Hai was reportedly naked when fell to his death off a residence hall at NYU. (Photo Credit: Instagram)
“It is with great sorrow that we report that a freshman was found in an interior courtyard in the residence hall where he lived,” NYU spokesman John Beckman said in a statement. “It appears as though his death occurred as a result of a fall from the roof of the building.”
Police and the university were investigating what led up to Lee-Hai’s death.
Business major Serena Fang said she woke up at 3 a.m. when the alarm bells sounded. “Today is the first day of the new semester,” Fang said. “It’s a real tragedy. People are really shook up.”
