Suicide of Etika

Daniel Desmond Amofah (May 12, 1990 – June 19, 2019), known online as Etika, was an American YouTuber, live-streamer and former model, best known for his reactions to various Nintendo products and games.

Background
On October 25, 2018, Amofah uploaded pornography to his YouTube channel, which violated YouTube's policies and consequently led to the channel's termination. He later had his second channel EtikaFRFX terminated in April 2019 for the same reason. He was also banned from Twitch that year for using a homophobic slur during a stream.

Following the termination of his channel, Amofah posted cryptic messages to social media, including the statement "it's my turn to die," coupled with a screenshot of his terminated account. Several of his followers felt that the messages and posts were suicidal in nature, which quickly created a panic within his following. Amofah took to social media that evening to confirm his well-being, along with other streamers who professed to having seen him safe and sound in person, so as to allay his followers' fears. He later apologized on his subreddit r/EtikaRedditNetwork. On October 29, 2018, Amofah confirmed on his Twitch stream that he purposefully deleted his channel due to the fact that he does not receive ad revenue from the channel.

On April 16, 2019, Amofah tweeted that he was going to kill himself with a pistol he bought from a gun store in Long Island, which subsequently led to his arrest and hospitalization. Christine Cardona, who had dated Amofah from 2011 to 2017, confirmed his well-being, and that she had been "observing him all day". Days later, he posted a photoshopped picture of himself holding a gun, which Cardona later confirmed was fake. On April 29, after tweeting a vast quantity of cryptic messages, including homophobic and ethnic slurs (that were promptly deleted), he blocked close friends of his, including fellow YouTuber Sky Williams. Later that day, he live-streamed himself being detained by police to over 19,000 viewers on Instagram Live, after a concerned fan notified police about his alarmingly erratic nature during the livestream. He was detained again later that same week for assaulting a police officer. Amofah would then make an appearance on the YouTube channel DramaAlert for an interview, in which he stated he was the "antichrist" and that he wanted to "purge all life".

Disappearance and death
In the late evening on June 19, 2019, Amofah posted a YouTube video titled "I'm sorry" to his personal YouTube channel TR1Iceman, alluding to his suicidal thoughts as he was walking down New York City streets; in the video he admitted to having mental health issues, struggling with the attention he had been having from streaming, and apologized for pushing people away from him. In the video, Amofah said "I hope that my story maybe helps to make YouTube a better place in the future where people know boundaries and limits and how far things should go." While the video was removed from YouTube for violations of its Community Guidelines, fans reposted the video to other outlets.

He was last heard from at 8 PM that night and was reported missing to the New York Police Department (NYPD) by June 20. On June 22, his belongings were found on the pedestrian walkway of the Manhattan Bridge, including a backpack, wallet, laptop bag, cell phone, a change of clothes, and a Nintendo Switch console. On the evening of June 24, a body was observed near Pier 16, approximately half a mile down the East River from where Etika's belongings were recovered, and reported to the NYPD. By the morning of June 25, NYPD and emergency medical services had recovered the body, confirmed it was Amofah, and that he was deceased by the point of recovery. A day later, it was confirmed the cause of death was suicide by drowning.

While Amofah was missing, fellow streamers and his fans tried to reach out to him to offer their help and show their appreciation of his work over the years. Several fans asked for Amofah's final video to be re-uploaded to YouTube to help memorialize him, and a Change.org petition has been started with over 50,000 signatures asking for his original channel to be restored to preserve his legacy.

This page is dedicated to Etika.