Thursday, September 30, 2010

A college freshman, a secret video and a suicide

It started with a Twitter message on Sept. 19: “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.”

That night, the authorities say, the Rutgers University student who sent the message used a camera in his dormitory room to stream the roommate’s intimate encounter live on the Internet.

And three days later, the roommate who had been surreptitiously broadcast — Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old freshman and an accomplished violinist — jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River in an apparent suicide.

The Sept. 22 death, details of which the authorities disclosed on Wednesday, was the latest by a young American that followed the online posting of hurtful material. The news came on the same day that Rutgers kicked off a two-year, campuswide project to teach the importance of civility, with special attention to the use and abuse of new technology.

Those who knew Mr. Clementi — on the Rutgers campus in Piscataway, N.J., at his North Jersey high school and in a community orchestra — were anguished by the circumstances surrounding his death, describing him as an intensely devoted musician who was sweet and shy.
Read the rest here.

Incredibly tragic. May God have mercy on the souls of all those involved.

2 comments:

Amy said...

damn…I wonder if charges are going to be brought against the idiots who streamed the video…Special Hell Special Hell Special Hell . . .

mjl said...

May God have mercy and grant peace to all!

On a side note, I have to admit that it is interesting that the University is starting to teach civility to students. Very few people any more are brought up with knowledge of their effect on those around them and with new technology the consequences are pretty awful. I just wish it didn't have to come to incidences like this before people realized, "Oh yeah, children and young adults need to be taught and shown common courtesy and civility!"