Picture from the NY Post's coverage.
Posted on 04/01/2004 3:36:39 AM PST by Pharmboy
The Police Department Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating how a police security video that captured a young man's suicide ended up on a Web site devoted to violence and pornography, a department spokesman said yesterday.
The young man, Paris Lane, 22, of Harlem, used a 9-millimeter handgun to kill himself on March 16 in a lobby at the Morris Houses project in the Bronx, where he had been visiting his girlfriend.
His foster mother said yesterday that she had notified the police when she learned the video had been posted on the site.
The 45-second video, which is no longer displayed there, shows Mr. Lane and his girlfriend standing near an open elevator door. She pulls her hands across her face as if wiping away tears and kisses him briefly, then they hug for a long moment, until she gently pulls away and steps into the elevator.
Mr. Lane waits for the elevator door to close, stares at it for a second, then pulls out the gun, puts it in his mouth and fires once, falling to the ground.
The site, Consumption Junction, describes itself this way: "Sociopathic surfers have declared this free site the best place to get their fix of sick free adult humor, tasteless (but way funny) dirty jokes, and free video clips that include shocking moments, brutal stupidity, and a healthy dose of hardcore sex."
It says it does not pay for the materials, which are sent in by its users, but it gives an award for one submission each month. The more printable video titles were, "The Beer Helps You Lower Your Standards a Little" and "His Air Bags Didn't Inflate."
The video of Mr. Lane's death was labeled "Introducing: The Self-Cleansing Housing Projects."
Mr. Lane's foster mother, Martha Williams, 56, called the Web site racist. She said she began receiving calls on Sunday from people telling her that the video, which does not identify him, was on the Internet. She said she had looked to confirm it was true, but could not watch it.
She went to C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan borough president, for help. A spokeswoman for Ms. Fields said Ms. Williams had previously asked the police if she could view the video, but had been denied.
Ms. Williams said the video's appearance on the site "desecrated" the memory of her son.
"I just started back to work. I started healing, and this kicked me backwards. My whole body was shaking," she said.
The camera that captured the suicide was part of an extensive police surveillance system that had been installed in 15 of the city's housing projects, said Paul J. Browne, the department's chief spokesman. It records digital images, which means they could have been easily sent by e-mail, he said. He said the department still had the original compact disk containing the video.
The police were investigating whether someone could have hacked into the system. "But we've never had it happen," Mr. Browne said.
The department has obtained a subpoena to learn who owns the Web site and will try to learn how the video was obtained. Mr. Browne said he did not know why the video had been removed from the site. It disappeared on Tuesday, a day after Ms. Williams notified Ms. Fields and the police.
In a chat area on the site, members debated whether the video was genuine or staged. "It's 100 percent real," wrote one member, smitty4699. "I submitted it, I know the cop who was at the scene."
Mr. Lane had apparently killed himself because he was despondent over his relationship with his girlfriend, Mr. Browne said. He had prior arrests, including one on domestic violence charges, Mr. Browne said.
Ms. Williams had cared for him since he was 11, when his father died of AIDS and his mother entered a drug rehabilitation program. His mother died about six years later, also of AIDS.
In an article about World AIDS Day in 1999, Mr. Lane, then 17, told The Times-Union of Albany that when his mother died, "That's when I lost all faith in everything."
He continued, "I couldn't understand why God would take away someone who was trying to make right from wrong."
Picture from the NY Post's coverage.
No. The website is sick and depraved, but crying 'racism' is silly.
I had no pre-conceived notions about the victims race before reading this sentence.
We've somehow ended up with a society that,for all it's talk of spirituallity,is spiritually hollow to the point of life being not livable at the age of 22 because of a breakup of a relationship...talk about a massive need.
His folks must be going through hell.A sad case all round.
God bless
Young people have been killing themselves over break-ups, depression, and so on for eons. It seems a stretch to take this one recent example as alleged evidence that "we've ended up with a society" that is "spiritually hollow".
Maybe not just that one relationship breaking up but also growing up with a druggie family, a father dying of AIDS and mother in prison, growing up in housing projects. Sounds like a pretty sad life to have had.
Apparently you didn't read to the end of the article?
That joke was old when I first heard it in high school.
Thanks for posting, but based on that name I would have to be skeptical about that guy's story.
LOL missed that. Rereading the comment, I think this one has to raise a few eyebrows also.
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