Eighteen-year-old Tyler Clementi, a
freshman at Rutgers University, committed suicide last week after he
was outed, the AP reported.
Friends and family say they are
heartbroken by their loss.
“I am just devastated that this
happened, especially to such an amazing person,” friend Christina
Guentert told ABC News. “Tyler was a remarkable person in many
ways; he was always kind, generous, sweet and loyal.”
Clementi took his own life after his
roommate, 18-year-old Dharun Ravi, allegedly secretly filmed him
having sex with another man and streamed the footage live on the
Internet. Ravi messaged his nearly 150 Twitter followers an
invitation to watch: “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat
me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again.”
Officials have charged Ravi, and freshman Molly Wei, with invading
Clemeti's privacy.
Moments before he jumped off the George
Washington Bridge, Clementi wrote on his Facebook page: “Jumping
off the GW bridge sorry.”
Authorities who recovered a man's body
Wednesday afternoon in the Hudson River were trying to determine if
it was Clementi's.
Gay rights activists are also mourning
the death of a 13-year-old California boy, Seth Walsh, who hanged
himself from a tree on Tuesday after teens had allegedly harassed him
for being gay.
Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden
State Equality, New Jersey's largest gay rights advocate, lamented
Clementi's death.
“We are heartbroken over the tragic
loss of a young man who, by all accounts, was brilliant, talented and
kind,” he said in a statement. “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.”