Adam Perez, aspiring actor, hit by police car
deb...@comcast.net
Parents weep for actor, Morris native hit by police car in NYC
BY JENNA M. MCKNIGHT
DAILY RECORD
HARDING -- Beatrice and Oscar Perez were sound asleep when they heard a
rapping at their front door about 4 a.m. Friday.
It was a parent's worst nightmare come true.
Standing outside were two Harding police officers who had come to
notify the couple that their only son, Adam Hunter Perez, had been
killed in an accident.
The 31-year-old actor and Morristown High School graduate was crossing
the street mid-block in Harlem when he was struck by a squad car racing
to assist officers in pursuit of an armed man. Witnesses said the
police cruiser was flashing its lights and sounding its siren.
Adam Perez -- described as lovable man who lit up a room -- will be
remembered today at an 11 a.m. memorial service at the Church of Christ
the King in New Vernon.
"This is my son," Beatrice Perez said at her home on Sunday evening,
holding up a photograph of a handsome man with sparkling eyes and a
flawless smile. "He was a beautiful young man who had parents who loved
him."
Adam Perez, who grew up in Morris Plains, moved to New York about a
decade ago and had been living in a Morningside Heights apartment for
about five years.
When the accident occurred near the intersection of Frederick Douglass
Boulevard and W. 115th Street, he was on his way home from Carmine's
restaurant in Manhattan, where he had been waiting tables to supplement
his acting career, his parents said.
He would have turned 32 on Christmas Eve.
"All of our hearts are truly broken," said Blaire Gallini, a longtime
friend of the family's who gathered at their Mount Kemble Avenue home
on Sunday.
Beatrice Perez said her son always had loved acting. He was a graduate
of Westchester University, where he studied theater, and the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Years ago, he was accepted into a New York theater company and has
performed in many off-Broadway shows.
Dangling from his mother's wrist on Sunday was a bracelet with gold
charms engraved with the names of plays her son performed in.
"All of these disks on my bracelet are his shows," she said, naming off
performances such as "Dark Rapture" and "The Heidi Chronicles."
Adam Perez recently told his parents that in addition to pursuing
acting, he wanted to become a schoolteacher because he wanted to "do
something every day that made a difference."
'A lot of values'
"He was a person who had a lot of values," his father said.
And he was a person who "emanated light," his mother added.
"Everybody liked him," she said. "He was loud and laughed all the time.
He was an unbiased, unprejudiced man."
Many of Adam Perez's friends have called this weekend to express their
condolences. The general manager of Carmine's told the family the
"light went out" in the restaurant when they learned of his death.
Adam Perez had planned to visit his parents this weekend and stay for
several days because his father was having surgery on Tuesday.
Beatrice Perez said the media has described her son simply as a
"31-year-old Harlem man." He was so much more than that, she said.
"He was an actor, a waiter, a wonderful son and cousin and nephew and
friend," she said. "He wasn't just a nameless, faceless person. He was
a beautiful boy. He will be missed by so many people."
