In the wake of Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi's suicide, some students are questioning the media's representation of what really happened in Davidson Hall last week.
Reports indicate that on two occasions Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, left a camera in the room the two shared in order to post on the internet video of his peer having a sexual encounter with another man.
But others say that that it was all a misunderstanding. The Daily Targum has more:
Students [who asked to remain anonymous] said Clementi asked his roommate Ravi to leave the room so that he could have time alone with a guest on the evening of Sept. 19.
A strange, older male later arrived at the room, they said. Ravi went to Wei's room, where he used a computer to access footage of the room from his webcam, they said.
Ravi had no intention of witnessing any kind of intimate encounter between the two, but rather wanted to see if anything unusual was taking place inside his room, as he was not familiar with Clementi's guest, they said.
"He just wanted to see what was going on," a student said.
According to the Targum article, Ravi closed his computer when he saw what was transpiring in his room. Friends say a similar series of events occurred on Sept. 21.
Ravi also posted to Twitter about Clementi's sexual encounters in their room on two separate occasions. On Sept. 21, he wrote: "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again." That night, he slept in a friend's room.
Both Ravi and fellow freshman Molly Wei face two counts of invasion of privacy, with Ravi facing two additional counts for the second incident.
Gawker reports that Clementi may have reached out for help before he jumped from the George Washington Bridge sometime after Sept. 22. In a series of posts on a message board on JustUsBoys.com, a user named cit2mo, assumed to be Clementi, asks for advice on how to deal with a spying roommate. "I could be more careful next time...make sure to turn the cam away...butt...[sic]...I'm kinda pissed at him (rightfully so, no)?" the user wrote.
The incidents remain under investigation. Clementi's body was found yesterday in the Spuyten Duyvil Creek off northern Manhattan.