Marchers tossed rose bouquets off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River yesterday in memory of the Rutgers music student who leaped to his death after a roommate secretly shot a video of him in a gay sexual encounter.
Carrying posters that read “Bullying Stops Here” and “Invasion of Privacy is Brutal,” the group paused for a moment of silence and listened to music from a violinist from Ridgewood HS, Tyler Clementi’s alma mater.
Among the 50 mourners was Jim Swimm, 39, who found Clementi’s body on Manhattan’s northern tip seven days after the 18-year-old’s suicide leap.
“I wish I could say I was shocked, but I’m not. While New York is an incredibly diverse city, hatred is out there all the time,” Swimm said.
Clementi’s roommate, Dharun Ravi, and a fellow freshman, Molly Wei, have been charged with surreptitiously recording Clementi having sex with a man in his dorm room and broadcasting the video over the Internet.