Rutgers Student Suicide

<p>I think invasion of privacy in this manner IS bullying, frankly.</p>

<p>Whether or not the crime was related to the fact that he was gay, to me, is irrelevant. Gay people and young gay people in particular live in an emotional pressure cooker related to their sexuality. When it comes to depression and suicide, unfortunately, they are at risk. To have their privacy, particularly in a sexual situation, violated in such a manner is huge and I believe that the trauma it could cause could very well be exacerbated by the intensity of what gay students go through anyway. Whether or not that means it should be a hate crime, I don’t care, I am not invested in that issue. But I think it makes sense for the gay community to react to this and to use it to bring attention to the issue of young gay people and suicide so that more lives can be saved. Arguing about what, specifically, for sure, caused him to commit suicide, I think, is missing the point. At least in terms of whether or not the gay community should be involving themselves. Legally it is a different story of course.</p>

<p>wow, i just stumbled upon this like an hour ago, and i’m pretty disgusted. i read an article where she personally said that she was ‘not guilty’ and also an article that defended her, saying that all she is ‘guilty’ of is letting that guy use her computer.</p>

<p>that argument is beyond flawed. she let him use her computer, yes, and then when he broadcast it she did nothing to stop him. if she had said just said no, tyler would still be alive probably. i’d say that makes her liable. PLUS, they didn’t even do it 1 time. they did it TWO times, and they probably would’ve done it more had he not commited suicide. SHE IS SO NOT INNOCENT. she let this happen freaking twice. i bet they were laughing their butts off. at the very least, she did not have a problem with her friend clearly violating another man. </p>

<p>maybe it was peer pressure, and she just wanted her friend to think she’s cool or whatever. maybe she thought that nothing bad would ever come of it. but that would make the most naive person in the world. especially for letting it happen twice. that implies that after the first time they had their fun she didn’t even bother to think about it afterwards and think about the morality of their actions: she had no problems whatsoever with the streaming. if it had just happened once and it was an in the moment thing, that’d be a little better, but she clearly had no qualms with letting him come back a second time. </p>

<p>i have a feeling their minds work the same way. birds of a feather flock together, after all.</p>

<p>anyway, i think they both deserve to be expelled and spend a few months in jail, and also they need to do community service on why privacy is important and also respecting people for being gay. i don’t know if they broadcast it because he was doing it with another man, but that could be the case.</p>

<p>^I totally agree with you and your righteous anger, I have just one correction…</p>

<p>…Months? They deserve years, many many many many maaaanny years. I would push for life, or at least 30-40 years, they deserve to have their futures forfeitted for what they did.</p>

<p>^i feel like that’s going too far. =/ yes they messed up beyond badly and that indian dude is literally messed up in the head…there is even proof that he found out his roommate was gay in the very beginning, and so i think a logical person can conclude that, when he asked to use molly’s computer, he was hoping to find gay sex. and then he posts it for everyone to see. he is messed up end of story. hopefully that’s enough to bring up discrimination charges.</p>

<p>anyway back to the point, i just don’t think they can get charged for out-right manslaughter (which is what would warrant such a sentence, no?) without not even laying a hand on the person. at the end of the day, and i say this with all sorriness, tyler was the one who chose to end it. a life sentence or 40 years is too much. that means that they’ll be coming out of prison when they’re 60, their own lives almost over ironically. that would make it 3 wasted lives. i don’t think what they did is to the point where they themselves need to forfeit their whole entire future. especially molly. i don’t agree that she finds herself innocent and not liable at all, but i also don’t agree that she deserves to burn and be the subject of hate for her entire life. </p>

<p>that’s why i propose community service in which they educate people about homosexuality. that and a bit of prison time. hopefully, when they finally get out of prison (2 years from now sounds good) everyone will, not forget about the issue, but try to allow for forgiveness. THESE PEOPLE ARE STILL REALLY YOUNG AND THINGS HAPPEN, I’M ESPECIALLY SPEAKING ABOUT MOLLY HERE. </p>

<p>on a different note, here’s more support that she is callous:</p>

<p>“She feels that everyone is attacking her,” a close friend tells PEOPLE </p>

<p>and my response:</p>

<p>molly, you clearly do not care that someone just died partially through your hands; at the very least, you could have stopped it–TWICE. you say that you feel attacked, only adding that you wished it didn’t turn out this way as a footnote. it is clear that your skin matters a lot more to you than tyler’s. i have heard no apologies from you. you are supposed to be compassionate. i don’t see any compassion.</p>

<p>if you would just admit that you had messed up, it would be a little better.</p>

<p>I would imagine their lawyers are telling them not to apologize because that would be admitting guilt.</p>

<p>@Wuchu that’s the point, they destroyed one life with hate, they need to pay for it, a few years is worthy payment for what they did? I’d say MAYBE 10 years, but a few is still not enough. Certainly not a few months, oh, kill a guy, get a few months. That’d be a disgusting sentence, that’d be getting away with it. The point of 30 or 40 years is because they’d be getting out that late, because it’d take away their entire lives. They sure didn’t mind taking away Tyler’s life, did they? Ignorant “boys will be boys” logic (and w/e you wanna use for Molly) doesn’t excuse they are the DIRECT catalyst for his suicide. Suicidal ideation if it’s strong enough can easily be classified as temporary insanity, thus any argument of “well he did it in the end” as a blame-the-victim argument that doesn’t hold water at all. They did it, they deserve to be punished. I don’t feel they DESERVE the kind of mercy to go on and live their futures, I’d be open to parole after about 10-15 years maybe but nothing less than that (and even that) even comes close to justice for Tyler.</p>

<p>^I do not think the law, or any sane jury, will support the idea that they <em>killed</em> Tyler. I don’t think they were sitting around saying “Haha, how can we make someone kill himself today?”</p>

<p>^Ignorance of their actions is no excuse, they don’t have to have “planned” it (although premeditation would be great for adding an extra 5-10 onto their sentence, and I think the argument can be made for their invasion of his privacy to have been premeditated, cause it was), they are the reason he killed himself. Their actions led to his temporary insanity (by way of his suicide ideation), QED they killed him by driving him to a state of temporary insanity which resulted in his death.</p>

<p>They premeditated the invasion of privacy, so they premeditated his death? I don’t think logic works that way. I think intentions will matter in this case. I think that it is a complex situation that cannot be reasonably simplified to “they killed him.”</p>

<p>^My point is that just because the simple man believing shooting a man in the head will not kill him doesn’t fly in court, because ignorance of the crime is no excuse, neither should this. While these two didn’t use a gun to kill Tyler, they recorded him in an intimate moment with the intent to cause humiliation, suffering, and shame. It’s true they didn’t use a gun, but they still metaphorically shot him in the head while believing that it would have no fatal consequences. Their ignorance of the potential ramifications of their actions is NO excuse. </p>

<p>My SECOND point, pursuant to the first, was that BECAUSE it’s no excuse, “a few months” as someone posted above, or even “a few years” as they corrected themselves with after I called them on it, is not severe enough punishment for the taking of a life.</p>

<p>

This situation is hardly analagous.</p>

<p>

I don’t think they intended for him to find out about it.</p>

<p>I think that the highest charge that could be brought against them is Involuntary Manslaughter (though I’m not even sure if the prosecution is pursuing this, the last I heard it was just the invasion of privacy charges). This would indeed usually only carry a penalty of a few years in prison. I cannot think of any legal way in which those two will have their lives taken from them, as you seem to desire.</p>

<p>While I agree that what they did was awful, and that they are terrible human beings, I don’t think that destroying 2 more lives is the appropriate response here. That seems to be more vengeance than justice. They will still have to live with the personal and social consequences of what they did, along with any criminal sentence.</p>