University student commits suicide after roommate secretly tapes gay encounter

[nitronuts]

Tyler Clementi, left, is thought to have committed suicide, days after video of him was secretly webcast on the Internet. Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, center, and another classmate, Molly Wei, have been charged in the case.

Outrage on campus over student's suicide after sex tape is broadcast online

'It's intolerant, it's upsetting, it makes it seem that being gay is something that is wrong'

msnbc.com staff and news service reports msnbc.com staff and news service reports

updated 54 minutes ago

The suicide of a university student — after a recording of him having a sexual encounter with a man was broadcast online — has stirred outrage and remorse on campus from classmates.

"Had he been in bed with a woman, this would not have happened," said Rutgers University student Lauren Felton, 21. "He wouldn't have been outed via an online broadcast and his privacy would have been respected and he might still have his life."

Gay rights groups say Tyler Clementi's suicide make him a national example of a problem they are working to combat: Young people who kill themselves after being tormented over their sexuality.

A lawyer for Clementi's family confirmed Wednesday that he had jumped off the George Washington Bridge last week .

Police recovered a man's body Wednesday afternoon in the Hudson River just north of the bridge, which connects New York and New Jersey, and authorities were trying to determine if it was Clementi's.

Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, and fellow Rutgers student Molly Wei, both 18, have been charged with invading Clementi's privacy.

Middlesex County prosecutors say the pair used a webcam to surreptitiously transmit a live image of Clementi having sex on Sept. 19 and that Ravi tried to webcast a second encounter on Sept. 21, the day before Clementi's suicide.

Collecting or viewing sexual images without consent is a fourth-degree crime. Transmitting them is a third-degree crime with a maximum prison term of five years.

Ravi wrote Sept. 19 on what is believed to be his Twitter page, which has since been deleted, but is still accessible though Google's cache system: "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."

Two days later, Ravi apparently posted another entry referring to iChat, an internet messaging service with a live video feed.

"Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again," Ravi wrote in the Sept. 21 post.

Clementi's last cry for help?

The website Gawker reported that a user called cit2mo who posted messages on a website called JustUsBoys may have been Clementi.

In a thread called "college roommate spying," the post from cit2mo on Sept. 21 at 7:22 a.m. said: "so the other night i had a guy over. I had talked to my roommate that afternoon and he had said it would be fine w/him. I checked his twitter today. he tweeted that I was using the room (which is obnoxious enough), AND that he went into somebody else’s room and remotely turned on his webcam and saw me making out with a guy. given the angle of the webcam I can be confident that that was all he could have seen," cit2mo wrote.

"I’m kinda pissed at him (rightfully so I think, no?) ... I feel like the only thing the school might do is find me another roommate, probably with me moving out … and i’d probably just end up with somebody worse than him ... I mean aside from being an asshole from time to time, he’s a pretty decent roommate," he added.

He added at 9:28 a.m. that day, that "I feel like it was 'look at what a cigarette my roommate is' ... and the fact that the people he was with saw my making out with a guy as a scandal whereas i mean come on ... he was SPYING ON ME ... do they see nothing wrong with this? unsettling to say the least."

ABC News and The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that on Sept. 22 Clementi left a note on his Facebook page that read: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry." On Wednesday, his Facebook page was accessible only to friends.

Even if the young violinist was not well known at his new school, his death stirred outrage.

"The notion that video of Tyler doing what he was doing can be considered a spectacle is just heinous," said Jordan Gochman, 19, who didn't know Clementi. "It's intolerant, it's upsetting, it makes it seem that being gay is something that is wrong and can be considered laughable."

Other students who did know Clementi were upset that they didn't do more to help him. "I wish I could have been more of an ally," said Georges Richa.

ABC News and The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that on Sept. 22 Clementi left a note on his Facebook page that read: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry." On Wednesday, his Facebook page was accessible only to friends.

About 100 people gathered Wednesday night for a vigil on campus. They lay on the ground and chanted slogans such as, "We're here, we're queer, we're not going home."

Several gay rights groups linked Clementi's death to the troubling phenomenon of young people committing suicide after being harassed over their sexuality.

On Tuesday, a 13-year-old California boy died nine days after classmates found him hanging from a tree. Authorities say other teens had taunted the boy, Seth Walsh of Tehachapi, for being gay.

'Heartbroken'

Steven Goldstein, chairman of New Jersey-based Garden State Equality, said in a statement that his group considers Clementi's death a hate crime.

"We are heartbroken over the tragic loss of a young man who, by all accounts, was brilliant, talented and kind," Goldstein said. "And we are sickened that anyone in our society, such as the students allegedly responsible for making the surreptitious video, might consider destroying others' lives as a sport."

Rutgers University President Richard McCormick wrote in a letter to the campus.

"If the charges are true, these actions gravely violate the university's standards of decency and humanity," he said.

Coincidentally, the university on Wednesday was launching a new two-year Project Civility, designed to get students thinking about how they treat others.

A lawyer for Ravi did not immediately return a message seeking comment. It was unclear whether Wei had retained a lawyer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[canucks_dynasty]

No sense of decency.

I hope the jerks get the max sentence.

[BurnabyJoe]

Throw the book at these SOB's.

Today's technology sure has some downsides..

[لني]

Wow.

What is up with people feeling the need to post crap online?

[avelanch]

seems like a little extreme of a response, but what they did was horrible and should be held accountable (manslaughter perhaps? though not sure if suicide would be deemed as a foreseeable outcome of their actions, that would be up to the lawyers to prove). Still not sure how the chick figures into this equasion, unless it was her comp that was used to turn on remotely/record/broadcast the video...

[Heretic]

Very sad indeed...and what's even more tragic is that it continues to happen....

[kazin!]

That saddest part was reading his forum post and Facebook status update.

In this day and age would anybody take an update like that seriously?

This makes me sick. Hope the kid gets the max.

[avelanch]

That saddest part was reading his forum post and Facebook status update.

In this day and age would anybody take an update like that seriously?

This makes me sick. Hope the kid gets the max.

[canucks_dynasty]

seems like a little extreme of a response, but what they did was horrible and should be held accountable (manslaughter perhaps? though not sure if suicide would be deemed as a foreseeable outcome of their actions, that would be up to the lawyers to prove). Still not sure how the chick figures into this equasion, unless it was her comp that was used to turn on remotely/record/broadcast the video...

[avelanch]

The roommate set everything up on his computer to record it on his webcam. He went to the girl's computer to turn the webcam on remotely. So she is an accomplice.

[lateralus]

I don't see how they could charge those two with being responsible for his suicide.

Invasion of privacy, for sure.

[avelanch]

I don't see how they could charge those two with being responsible for his suicide.

Invasion of privacy, for sure.

[Psylocke]

Ugh. It's disgusting to think that someone would think it's okay to spy on another person like that. Let alone put it online.

[Not Rupaul :(]

this happened to me last week. i was in my room with a girl and my roomate went outside, cracked open my window and filmed us through the window on his camera phone. then that night, at a party, he proceeded to show the video to everyone without me knowing about it. i was really upset when i found out, i hit him and hid his phone for a few days.

so i felt pretty upset. but if i was a gay guy who didn't want people to know and that sort of thing happened, oh man.

[Mario Lemieux]

Why are people so stupid? Its mind boggling. Didn't they think at all about the possible consequences?

[Common sense]

Condolences to the family of the deceased, but given that the crime inextricably states that anyone found collecting or viewing sexual images without consent or transmitting them, why should the fact that the person was gay make it as news?

If it happened to a straight person, it would simply be tossed aside for another sensationalist story.

[FeStealth]

Not really trying to defend the people who recorded the whole act, but one thing I'm wondering is if the "accomplice" was really involved in it. There's a difference between, "You want to spy on some gay kid and then post it online! Count me in!" vs "Oh, you need to use my comp? Sure, I'm the library anyways". Posting the name of the 2nd person seems a bit unnecessary.

As much as the perpetrator(s) should be punished, lets not jump onto the mob mentality and go after them with pitchforks and torches. This is the year 2010, not 1950.... it wasn't like being a LGBT spells the end of your life. Not saying it's not important or a minor thing, but people don't just automatically choose suicide as an option when something major happens, unless they were mentally instable to begin with.

If it was some guy banging a girl and she committed suicide later, it would have been just a small "unfortunate consequence". But since this involved someone who was gay, now it's all "Omg... this is a hate crime... yadda yadda yadda...."

It was a prank that gone horribly wrong.

[canucks_dynasty]

Condolences to the family of the deceased, but given that the crime inextricably states that anyone found collecting or viewing sexual images without consent or transmitting them, why should the fact that the person was gay make it as news?

If it happened to a straight person, it would simply be tossed aside for another sensationalist story.

[fogducker]

A very unfortunate followup to the event itself. I don't think the story is being written in a manner where it's news just because Clementi was gay. It's news because it's a growing trend in the United States lately that homosexuals are being targeted because of their lifestyle. Obviously homophobia is nothing new, but previously it didn't lead to so many cases where the individual targeted killed themselves.

As for a punishment, it would be hard to charge Ravi directly with manslaughter given the low degree of the actual crime itself. That being said, with national coverage, Rutgers may decide to pursue internal action based on their own regulations and university rulings. Should Ravi find himself expelled as a result it could for all intents and purposes ruin his academic career. Expulsion from a university, and especially one as major as Rutgers would make it near impossible to gain entrance to another school with such an incident on the record.

[Sterling Archer]

For everyone saying his reaction was extreme, have you ever been in a situation where you've contemplated suicide? You have no idea what this kid was going through if he was willing to jump off a bridge. An over reaction is punching a hole in a wall when you stub your toe. This is temporary insanity brought about by stress.