Regina Spektor, “Beautiful Musician Dave Deporis has Passed Away” – Dies After Chasing Thief

Posted by On August 10, 2017 0 Comment

Musician Dave Deporis was killed by a hit-and-run robber in the Temescal neighborhood in Oakland, CA yesterday (8/9/17).

Earlier today, Oakland police confirmed that the man killed, after chasing a robber who stole his laptop, was Dave Deporis. The report goes on to say that after snatching the laptop from a local cafe where Deporis worked, the robber was able to get in his vehicle (red Audi) and started driving away when Deporis reportedly chased after him and was briefly dragged until he slipped beneath the wheels of the vehicle, ultimately being run over.

Local resident Theresa O’Connor told fullinbloom.com, “What we heard was a car speeding up our very narrow one-way street with a speed bump, then it hit a few things, then we heard people screaming. I ran to the door and outside a car had taken off, and there was a man laying in the street motionless. I heard from some others that somebody stole his laptop from outside a cafe on Telegraph (used to be Arbor Cafe, now Hawk and Pony), and he’d tried to get it back and he’s somehow been dragged along in the car on Rich St, which is when we heard it. I don’t know if they got a description of the driver.”

A memorial and celebration of Dave’s life will take place in NYC as well as in Oakland. The Oakland memorial is going to be September 9th at Sol Gate Studios, while the date for the NYC memorial will be announced soon.

Deporis was said to be very close to releasing his long-awaited debut album. He was forty years old.

Musician Regina Spektor commented, “I found out that the beautiful musician Dave Deporis has passed away… I first heard him years ago at Sidewalk Cafe.”

Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond):

My tears overflow with the passing of the incredible @youhavepowers. Dave Deporis was playing the Sidewalk Cafe in New York in 1999 and 2000 when I first started playing the open mic there. He wrote a song with a pencil in his guitar and I loved the song so much and wrote “Disappear” with a pencil in my guitar too but my song wasn’t as pretty as his. Ever. He raged. He wandered. He sang so pretty he could break my heart in half and soften the walls I’d built around myself.. I had so many hopes for him and for his music. He never put anything out cause he was always recording and re-recording and editing songs, changing them time over again… but in all their iterations they were beautiful. He was a punk. Other. A true original. He was my friend. I am so sad. See you in the spheres, dear David.