Jamey Rodemeyer. (YouTube.) The Amherst, N.Y. Police Department's Special Victims Unit has opened a criminal investigation into Jamey’s death, ABCNews.com reports. Capt. Michael Camillleri confirmed to BlogPost that the unit has started a preliminary inquiry.
“The special victims unit is looking into the circumstances that occurred prior to Jamey Rodemeyer’s death,” Camilleri said in an e-mail. “At this point it is too early to determine if any crimes were committed.”
Jamey was found dead outside his Buffalo area home Monday. He had family and friends who supported him, and was seeing a therapist and social worker. But he was a target of bullies, both online and at school.
“The bullies now are still walking around. They get to wake up tomorrow and go to school and see all their friends, but my son will not be given a second chance no matter how much I have prayed,” Jamey’s mother Tracy told CBS News. “I would have given my own life to turn back the minute we seen him.”
His father Tim said, “They have to somehow get the power away from the bully, and I don't know how you do that, and that's the biggest question in my mind.”
Jamey’s idol Lady Gaga expressed her heartbreak over his death on Twitter. The singer said she will work to “make a law for Jamey.”
Singer Ricky Martin, who is openly gay, joined Gaga’s cry for a law.
“Jamey's suicide is a tragic reminder of the vulnerability of gay teens,” Malcolm Lazin, founder and executive director of the Equality Forum, told ABCNews.com. “They are bullied and marginalized.
“While some may say that Jamey took his life, it is unrelenting homophobia that murdered him.
Police said they had spoken with Williamsville School Superintendent Scott G. Martzloff, who has pledged the district's cooperation.
"We've heard that there were some specific students, an identifiable group of students, that had specifically targeted Jamey, or had been picking on him for a period of time," Police Chief John C. Askey told the Buffalo News.
Jamey sent out many signals on social networking sites that he was struggling with his sexuality, even though he encouraged others on the It Gets Better project websiteYouTube to fight off the bullies.
He killed himself this weekend after posting an online farewell.
Lady Gaga weighed in on the situation via twitter: "Bullying must become illegal. It is a hate crime," she tweeted.
"I am meeting with our President. I will not stop fighting. This must end. Our generation has the power to end it. Trend it #MakeALawForJamey," the singer posted to twitter last night.
Friends reported the bullying to guidance counselors. But everyone, including his mother, thought he had grown stronger.
His death coincides with a national summit this week sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C., an effort to stem the toll of bullying school children.
Speaking at the second annual Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Summit were the parents of Justin Aaberg, a gay 15-year-old from Champlain, Minn., who hanged himself after being bullied. The parents, Tammy and Shawn Aaberg, said that one form of the bullying came from a student religious group whose members told Justin that he was going to hell because he was gay.
"Justin was a smiley, happy boy who loved to play his cello," said his parents. "School systems need to do more to protect LGBT students from bullying, and not turn their back on them because of their sexual orientation."
Rodemeyer's suicide also sets off a somber beginning to LGBT History Month in October.
"Jamey's suicide is a tragic reminder of the vulnerability of gay teens," said Malcolm Lazin, founder and executive director of the Equality Forum, which focuses on LGBT civil rights and education.
"They are bullied and marginalized," he said. "While some may say that Jamey took his life, it is unrelenting homophobia that murdered him."
Jamey's mother, Tracy Rodemeyer, who did not return calls from ABCNews.com, told the Buffalo News that her son had been questioning his sexuality and had expressed thoughts of suicide, but had also been encouraged by good friends and was a "happy" and "strong" teen.
Friends described him as caring and friendly, and he had been seeking help from a social worker and therapist.
According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, 28 percent of students aged 12 to 18 reported that they were bullied in school during the 2008-2009 school year. Bullying also slows down as children get older from a high of 39 percent of all sixth graders to 20 percent of high school seniors.
The most overwhelming form of bullying is done through ridicule, insult and rumors, rather than physical aggression, according to the report.
The rate of victimization among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students has remained constant between 1999 and 2009, the latest date for which there are statistics, according to the National Climate Survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
Parents and educators say they face significant challenges in stemming LGBT bullying, particularly at schools where there are fewer resources and support groups such as gay-straight alliances.
"We have seen some positive signs in available resources and supportive educators and society is moving in a good direction," GLSEN spokesman Daryl Presgraves said. "But it's still very difficult to be an LGBT youth in school.
He posted a lyric this weekend from Lady Gaga's song "The Queen" on his Facebook page: "Don't forget me when I come crying to heaven's door."
His final message appeared on his Tumblr blog expressing a desire to see his great-grandmother, who had recently died, according to the local newspaper.
His mother said his tears and anger had recently dissipated. "Lately, he's been blowing them off, or at least we thought he was," she told the Buffalo News.
Teens in Crisis
When the family went camping last weekend, he seemed happy.
Suicide prevention experts say they are grateful that the media has played down the details about how he killed himself.
"The risk, especially in this case, is potentially causing other young people in their direct vicinity to take their own lives," said Laura McGinnis, a spokeswoman for the Trevor Project, which runs a national lifeline for people younger than 24, especially LGBT and questioning youth. "The risk for contagion is too high when we share the means and method and how he did it can actually increase the likelihood that others will do it, too."
Few statistics exist on young people who kill themselves. But overall rates among those aged 10 to 24 declined from 9.24 suicides per 100,000 in 1991 to 7.01 suicides per 100,000 in 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Suicide never has one cause, that is something really important to recognize," McGinnis said. "But [Jamey] had the support of parents and friends and he was planning on going to a homecoming dance and dress like Lady Gaga. How do you know as a parent what signs to looks for? And sometimes, it's really difficult to know."
In her work with teens in crisis, McGinnis does not recommend covertly monitoring a child's social networking accounts, but instead establishing trust and open lines of communication to gain a welcome invitation.
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