(L to R: Tyler Clementi, Dharun Ravi)
New York:
The young man writing on the gay chat site was torn: he had discovered that his college roommate had spied on him from another room with a webcam as he kissed a male friend. Should he complain to the school? Would officials assign him someone worse? Or would he simply risk angering the roommate?
After all, the man wrote on September 21, aside from some occasional bad behavior, "he's a pretty decent roommate."
The next night, Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman, walked onto the George Washington Bridge and jumped over the edge; the authorities said his roommate had streamed a live Internet feed of Mr. Clementi's encounter with another man in their dormitory room.
Mr. Clementi's body was identified on Thursday. (Read: Student secretly taped having sex kills himself)
The messages in the forums of a pornography site, JustUsBoys.com, appear to have come from Mr. Clementi, a talented violinist from Ridgewood, N.J. The postings show a student wrestling with his rising indignation over a breach of privacy and trying to figure out how best to respond.
In one of the person's last messages, at 4:38 a.m. on the day Mr. Clementi took his life, the person wrote in a post that the roommate had tried again to catch him on camera the previous night, and had messaged friends to watch online.
He decided to act. "I ran to the nearest R.A. and set this thing in motion," he wrote. "We'll see what happens."
At the Rutgers campus in Piscataway, N.J., where Mr. Clementi, 18, shared a cramped room with Dharun Ravi, students mourned their classmate on Thursday, and some questioned the accusations against Mr. Ravi and another freshman, Molly Wei. The two students, both 18 and from New Jersey, have each been charged with invasion of privacy for using "the camera to view and transmit a live image" of Mr. Clementi.
Under a leaden sky, students debated whether the surreptitious broadcast was a thoughtless prank or a crime. Gay and lesbian students demanded that the university re-examine its policies on bias and bullying, and called for safe housing and other programs.
On Wednesday night, after the start of the university's two-year campaign to foster courtesy and respect, demonstrators for gay rights got into a screaming match with residents of Mr. Ravi's dormitory, Davidson Hall, who objected to some of their language. Several students had to be physically separated.
In Trenton, Gov. Chris Christie expressed outrage over the suicide and the events preceding it, saying, "I don't know how those two folks are going to sleep at night." And a spokesman for the state's attorney general, Paula T. Dow, said her office was consulting with Middlesex County prosecutors to see if the evidence supported bringing bias charges, based on the victim's sexual orientation, that would raise the potential punishment from 5 years in prison to 10.
On Sept. 19, Mr. Ravi messaged his Twitter followers that he had set up a webcam in his room and then watched from Ms. Wei's room, adding that he saw Mr. Clementi "making out with a dude."
The postings on the gay chat site last week, reported Wednesday on the Web site Gawker, appear to show Mr. Clementi's reactions as he read Mr. Ravi's posts about the camera, and the apparent disdain for his homosexuality.
"And so I feel like it was 'look at what a fag my roommate is,' " he wrote on Sept. 21. "Other people have commented on his profile with things like 'how did you manage to go back in there?' and 'are you ok?' and the fact that the people he was with saw my making out with a guy as the scandal whereas I mean come on ... he was SPYING ON ME ... do they see something wrong with this?"
In earlier postings on the site, Mr. Clementi referred to his mother's work as a nurse, his love of music and theater, his fair skin and red hair. The dates and details of the postings about the webcam surveillance match those given by prosecutors.
In his posts last week, Mr. Clementi appeared offended and unsure of what to do, but also logical and circumspect, even employing a bit of humor. "Revenge never ends well for me, as much as I would love to pour pink paint all over his stuff ... that would just let him win," he wrote on Sept. 21.
But that evening, he wrote, he discovered his roommate's camera was aimed at his bed, and he decided to tell a resident advisor.
At West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, the school near Princeton where both defendants graduated in June, students described them as kind people from loving families. Both had gay friends, they said. In their senior yearbook, in which Mr. Ravi was named "best dancer," his parents took out an advertisement with three of his baby pictures. It read, in part, "Dear Dharun ... It has been a pleasure watching you grow into a caring and responsible person."
Mark Lin, 17, a senior there, lives across the street from the Ravi family's spacious red-brick house, where four newspapers lay in the driveway. He described Mr. Ravi as a generous person who knew how to break dance, took Advanced Placement courses and participated in track, excelling in the long jump.
"I don't think he would intentionally harm someone," he said. "He's not that kind of guy. He likes to make people laugh, but not at their expense."
Former classmates described Ms. Wei as a diligent student and an only child. She is enrolled in the pharmacy school at Rutgers. Mr. Ravi and she have never dated, they said, but the two have long been friends, and ended up in the same dormitory on the university's Busch campus. "She's probably one of the nicest girls I know," Mr. Lin said.
At Rutgers, students wrestled with the tragedy and its implications. "It's horrible for everyone involved," said Kyle Bomeisl, 21. "There should be punishment, but five years of jail is extremely harsh. I'm sure these children did not intend for this child to go out and commit suicide."
Through the postings on the site, Mr. Clementi himself could still be heard. Despite the personal revelations he had made online, there were certain things that he felt were strictly private, like displays of affection. "Anything beyond holding hands/linking arms while walking should generally be reserved for private settings," he wrote.
(Ann Farmer, Barbara Gray and Nate Schweber contributed reporting)
After all, the man wrote on September 21, aside from some occasional bad behavior, "he's a pretty decent roommate."
The next night, Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman, walked onto the George Washington Bridge and jumped over the edge; the authorities said his roommate had streamed a live Internet feed of Mr. Clementi's encounter with another man in their dormitory room.
Mr. Clementi's body was identified on Thursday. (Read: Student secretly taped having sex kills himself)
The messages in the forums of a pornography site, JustUsBoys.com, appear to have come from Mr. Clementi, a talented violinist from Ridgewood, N.J. The postings show a student wrestling with his rising indignation over a breach of privacy and trying to figure out how best to respond.
In one of the person's last messages, at 4:38 a.m. on the day Mr. Clementi took his life, the person wrote in a post that the roommate had tried again to catch him on camera the previous night, and had messaged friends to watch online.
He decided to act. "I ran to the nearest R.A. and set this thing in motion," he wrote. "We'll see what happens."
At the Rutgers campus in Piscataway, N.J., where Mr. Clementi, 18, shared a cramped room with Dharun Ravi, students mourned their classmate on Thursday, and some questioned the accusations against Mr. Ravi and another freshman, Molly Wei. The two students, both 18 and from New Jersey, have each been charged with invasion of privacy for using "the camera to view and transmit a live image" of Mr. Clementi.
Under a leaden sky, students debated whether the surreptitious broadcast was a thoughtless prank or a crime. Gay and lesbian students demanded that the university re-examine its policies on bias and bullying, and called for safe housing and other programs.
On Wednesday night, after the start of the university's two-year campaign to foster courtesy and respect, demonstrators for gay rights got into a screaming match with residents of Mr. Ravi's dormitory, Davidson Hall, who objected to some of their language. Several students had to be physically separated.
In Trenton, Gov. Chris Christie expressed outrage over the suicide and the events preceding it, saying, "I don't know how those two folks are going to sleep at night." And a spokesman for the state's attorney general, Paula T. Dow, said her office was consulting with Middlesex County prosecutors to see if the evidence supported bringing bias charges, based on the victim's sexual orientation, that would raise the potential punishment from 5 years in prison to 10.
On Sept. 19, Mr. Ravi messaged his Twitter followers that he had set up a webcam in his room and then watched from Ms. Wei's room, adding that he saw Mr. Clementi "making out with a dude."
The postings on the gay chat site last week, reported Wednesday on the Web site Gawker, appear to show Mr. Clementi's reactions as he read Mr. Ravi's posts about the camera, and the apparent disdain for his homosexuality.
"And so I feel like it was 'look at what a fag my roommate is,' " he wrote on Sept. 21. "Other people have commented on his profile with things like 'how did you manage to go back in there?' and 'are you ok?' and the fact that the people he was with saw my making out with a guy as the scandal whereas I mean come on ... he was SPYING ON ME ... do they see something wrong with this?"
In earlier postings on the site, Mr. Clementi referred to his mother's work as a nurse, his love of music and theater, his fair skin and red hair. The dates and details of the postings about the webcam surveillance match those given by prosecutors.
In his posts last week, Mr. Clementi appeared offended and unsure of what to do, but also logical and circumspect, even employing a bit of humor. "Revenge never ends well for me, as much as I would love to pour pink paint all over his stuff ... that would just let him win," he wrote on Sept. 21.
But that evening, he wrote, he discovered his roommate's camera was aimed at his bed, and he decided to tell a resident advisor.
At West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, the school near Princeton where both defendants graduated in June, students described them as kind people from loving families. Both had gay friends, they said. In their senior yearbook, in which Mr. Ravi was named "best dancer," his parents took out an advertisement with three of his baby pictures. It read, in part, "Dear Dharun ... It has been a pleasure watching you grow into a caring and responsible person."
Mark Lin, 17, a senior there, lives across the street from the Ravi family's spacious red-brick house, where four newspapers lay in the driveway. He described Mr. Ravi as a generous person who knew how to break dance, took Advanced Placement courses and participated in track, excelling in the long jump.
"I don't think he would intentionally harm someone," he said. "He's not that kind of guy. He likes to make people laugh, but not at their expense."
Former classmates described Ms. Wei as a diligent student and an only child. She is enrolled in the pharmacy school at Rutgers. Mr. Ravi and she have never dated, they said, but the two have long been friends, and ended up in the same dormitory on the university's Busch campus. "She's probably one of the nicest girls I know," Mr. Lin said.
At Rutgers, students wrestled with the tragedy and its implications. "It's horrible for everyone involved," said Kyle Bomeisl, 21. "There should be punishment, but five years of jail is extremely harsh. I'm sure these children did not intend for this child to go out and commit suicide."
Through the postings on the site, Mr. Clementi himself could still be heard. Despite the personal revelations he had made online, there were certain things that he felt were strictly private, like displays of affection. "Anything beyond holding hands/linking arms while walking should generally be reserved for private settings," he wrote.
(Ann Farmer, Barbara Gray and Nate Schweber contributed reporting)
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