Gay Rutgers student torn in chat-site postings

The man writing on the gay chat site was torn: He had discovered 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 anger the roommate?

After all, the man wrote Sept. 21, aside from some occasional bad behavior, "he's a pretty decent roommate."

The next night, Tyler Clementi, 18, a Rutgers University freshman, walked onto the George Washington Bridge and jumped over the edge; authorities said his roommate had streamed a live Internet feed of Clementi's encounter with another man in their dormitory room. Clementi's body was identified Thursday.

The messages on the chat site by a man calling himself cit2mo appear to have come from 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 his last messages, at 4:38 a.m. the day he took his life, he wrote 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 Clementi shared a room with Dharun Ravi, students mourned their classmate Thursday, and some questioned the accusations against Ravi and another freshman, Molly Wei. The two, 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 Clementi.

Students debated whether the surreptitious broadcast was a thoughtless prank or a heinous 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 Ravi's dormitory, Davidson Hall.

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."

A spokesman for the state attorney general, Paula Dow, said that office was consulting the Middlesex County prosecutor to see if the evidence supported bringing bias charges, based on the victim's sexual orientation, that would raise the potential punishment from five years in prison to 10.

Ravi had made references to his roommate's homosexuality in Twitter posts. Even before they arrived on campus, Ravi sent a message Aug. 22 that he had "found out my roommate is gay" and included a link to a gay chat room.

Ravi posted a message on his now-closed Twitter account 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."

The postings on the gay chat site last week by cit2mo, reported Wednesday on the website Gawker, appear to show Clementi's reactions as he read Ravi's posts about the camera, and the apparent disdain for his homosexuality.

"And so I feel like it was 'look at what a ... my roommate is,' " he wrote 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 <137,2010/9/30/18/23/40,ahart>1/2<137>he was SPYING ON ME do they see something wrong with this?"

In posts last week, 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 <137,2010/9/30/18/23/59,ahart>1/2<137> that would just let him win," he wrote Sept. 21.

Lawyers for Ravi and Wei did not return calls.

At West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, the high school near Princeton where both defendants graduated in June, students described them as kind people from loving families. Both had gay friends, they said.

Mark Lin, 17, a senior there, lived across the street from Ravi's spacious redbrick house, where four unopened newspapers lay in the yard. He described 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.

Former classmates described Wei as a diligent student and an only child. She is enrolled in the pharmacy school at Rutgers. Ravi and she 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," Lin said.

A lawyer for Clementi's family did not respond to requests for comment on whether Clementi had come out to friends and family about his sexual orientation. He also said the family had no comment.

In Ridgewood, the suburban New Jersey town where Clementi grew up and attended high school, mourning continued Thursday.

Clementi's violin teacher for the past five years could not believe he had taken his own life.

"He was a very genuine and, I guess, you could call it a shy person," said Khullip Jeung, 33, who teaches out of his home in Fort Lee. "But when he played the violin, it was different. He had a strong voice. He knew what he wanted to say. And he spoke through his violin. And I think that is the real Tyler that I knew."

Childhood friend Mary Alcaro, who played in a summer music academy with him, said Clementi had been destined for greatness.

"I've never heard anyone make a violin sing the way he did," she said in an e-mail.

Ann Farmer, Barbara Gray and Nate Schweber contributed reporting. Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.