A tragic traffic accident put a pall on the new school year for students at Abramson Sci Academy, who lost one of their own on Friday.
Damari Eves was a 10th-grade horn player who played mellophone and baritone in Abe’s band, known as the Beast from the East.
In Gentilly, the close-knit Eves family is also mourning the sudden loss of the family’s youngest son, Damari, who just turned 14.
His father, Harry R. Eves III, had been at their house nearby, prepping ingredients for the oysters that he chargrills and sells from under the raised portion of North Claiborne under the vendor name Da Bearded Wonder. Then he heard about the accident on the TV news. “I had this feeling of parental intuition, instinct, whatever you call it.” He grabbed his keys, drove over to Gentilly Avenue, discovered that the victim was Damari, and fell to the ground in the street.
His son was home from school resting up, his dad said, because Abe had a football game that night against Sarah T. Reed. His son was a devoted musician, he said.
On nice days, Damari and his dad would head to Lake Pontchartrain to go fishing. He also like to ride a miniature gas-powered scooter that his four older brothers and parents had given him for his 14th birthday, eight days ago, on August 27.
“I had told him to leave the bike at home, because he had things to do. I wanted him to clean up the house, clean his room before he left,” his dad said. “But I knew he had a little time before tonight’s game, so I wasn’t worried about it yet. So he just went off. I think he just wanted to take a ride.”
Not far away, a collision
At around 12 noon, a few blocks from the family’s house, a man driving a pickup truck collided with Damari in the intersection of Gentilly Boulevard and Norman Mayer Avenue in Gentilly, near the Norman Mayer Library.
The young man was declared dead at the scene.
NOPD squad cars blocked the area as officers interviewed witnesses and waited for the coroner’s van to arrive. The driver pulled over and had been “very cooperative,” police said. Further details about the incident were not yet available.
Mayor Helena Moreno and Deputy Mayor Michael Harrison, a former New Orleans Police Department superintendent, came to Gentilly and prayed with the young man’s family.
“Our top priority is really the family, here dealing with an unimaginable loss,” the mayor said at a press conference at the scene with NOPD Supt. Anne Kirkpatrick. “I will certainly be keeping them in my prayers, and I ask that the city do the same.”
The Eves family had expressed concerns to them about the safety of scooters sharing the streets with bigger vehicles, Harrison said. Only people authorized to ride those motorized bicycles should be on the streets, he said, and they should wear helmets.
Damari had not been wearing a helmet, police confirmed.
“So much could have been prevented,” Harrison said. “But right now, we’re here to support. We’re here to be with the folks who are grieving, in their time of grief, and to support the men and women who are out here investigating, taking in that trauma themselves.”
Also, New Orleans kids will be back in schools after the Labor Day holiday, Harrison said. “Be mindful of that as well. Everybody do their part, okay, so that we can prevent these kinds of fatal situations.”
Damari’s oldest brother, Donavin Thornsbury, said that the day had started like any other day. “Either he is in his room, playing the game, or he’s outside having fun with the kids in the neighborhood.”
Just before lunch on Friday, he left on his mini-bike. About an hour later, his mother, Tanisha Eves, arrived at the scene and asked people to move back so that she could stand alone at the place where her son had taken his last breath.
