‘Manic’ Mon. at high-rise
The man who launched a lawn chair and other patio furniture off a 20-story Midtown Manhattan high-rise Monday was a Haitian migrant in the midst of a delusional, paranoid crisis two days before the bizarre, caught-on-camera episode, his brother told The Post.
On Saturday night, Jean Bernard Olivier, 51, received a phone call from his younger brother and the accused furniture thrower, Jean Luke Olivier, 33, who told his sibling, “People are trying to kill me.”
“I told him he needed to go see a doctor, he needed psychiatric help,” said Bernard, who learned about Luke’s arrest from The Post.
It wasn’t the first time Luke displayed manic behavior, per his older brother.
Luke moved from his native Haiti to live with Bernard in Miami in early 2023 but was kicked out of the home in the winter because of “anger” issues, he said.
“He had some trouble with my wife, my daughter . . . They were arguing,” Bernard recalled. “When I got home from work one day, I told him he had to leave.
He said Luke first moved to Arkansas to live with a girlfriend, then relocated to the Big Apple after the two broke up.
“From the way he’s been acting” since arriving in the US, “I think he has mental problems,” Bernard said.
Luke visited the Consulate General of Haiti before allegedly flipping out, according to police sources.
He’s seen in videos tossing a chair and several wooden planks from a landing one level down from the roof of the building, which is also home to a Barnes & Noble on the ground floor.
One video shows a motorcyclist narrowly avoiding one of the objects as it falls to the street below, while another shows a wooden plank breaking on top of a city bus.
In one clip, Luke waves his arms as onlookers inside a building across the street film the troubling episode.
Luke was arrested and slapped with felony reckless endangerment and criminal mischief charges, cops said.
He pleaded not guilty, and was released without bail by a Manhattan judge on Tuesday.