The Tyler Clementi suicide was devastating — an example of how gay teens continue to be subjected to brutality, invasions of privacy and an array of intrusions that would not be tolerated were they done to any other group.
So the announcement of an indictment of the Plainsboro teen accused of videotaping Clementi with another male teen and then streaming it on another computer has led to praise from gay-rights groups and the Clementi family.
Steven Goldstein, head of Garden State Equality, the largest gay rights organization in the state, wrote in a statement that the indictment sends a clear message to bullies across the state and Ravi’s actions were anything but a college prank gone awry.
“Today’s indictment, when combined with the recently enacted anti-bullying law which Garden State Equality steered to enactment – widely considered the strongest anti-bullying law in the country – will have an appropriate chilling effect on bullies everywhere,” he wrote.
“We continue to mourn the loss of Tyler Clementi deeply. Today is a day of justice,” he added.
Dharun Ravi, 19, was indicted on two counts of invasion of privacy, two counts of attempted invasion of privacy, two counts of seond-degree bias crimes, two counts of third-degree bias crimes. three counts of tampering with evidence, three counts of hindering his own apprehension and one count of witness tampering.
According to The Star-Ledger,
Grand jurors found Ravi attempted to mislead investigators and witnesses in various way, Kaplan said. He said the grand jury determined Ravi deleted a post on Twitter that alerted others to view Clementi and another man during their second encounter in a university dorm room on Sept. 21, 2010. Ravi also tried to convince witnesses not to testify against him and provided investigators with misleading information, Kaplan said.
Authorities say Ravi used a computer in another room to activate a hidden webcam in his dorm room in Davidson Hall, on the Busch campus in Piscataway, on Sept. 19, 2010, and streamed images of his roommate with another man. Ravi allegedly tried to spy on the roommate again two days later using the hidden webcam.
Listening to the yahoos on 101.5, however, makes it clear that there remains a huge number of people
in this state who view homosexuality as a choice and that gays should be treated to fewer protections than the rest of us.
Callers making the claim that this only became a big deal because it involved a gay student were right, but for the wrong reasons. This became a big deal — and was a bias crime — because the alleged videotaping was done as part of an antigay prank, a tactic designed to intimidate Clementi.
Critics are right when they say Ravi did not make Clementi commit suicide, but that’s beside the point. Ravi is not charged with manslaughter; he is charged with the series of activities that led up to the suicide, which would have warranted indictment even had Clementi not taken his life.
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