VivirLatino

18 year-old David Ritcheson, a young Latino man from Houston who survived a brutal racially motivated attack last year has died after jumping from a Carnival cruise ship:

David Ritcheson hated being known as “that kid” the teenager who was beaten unconscious and sodomized with a plastic pole during a party where one of his assailants shouted “White Power!” Ritcheson didn’t want to stand out from his classmates because of the assault, but he acknowledged in an interview that “it was just really hard to hold your head up, even to walk outside with everyone almost in the world knowing what happened.” That anguish may have contributed to his decision to leap Sunday from a cruise ship to his death in the Gulf of Mexico.

A man at Ritcheson’s home who identified himself as the teen’s father confirmed the death Monday to The Associated Press. He declined to give his name or comment further, saying the family would issue a statement later.

What’s unclear in these initial reports surfacing in media today is whether David’s death was a suicide or an accident, though mainstream media outlets seems to be alluding to the former. It’s a tragic death either way, and I sincerely hope that the hate crime bill proposed in David’s name by Houston-area Representative Sheila Jackson Lee — already approved by the House — gets passed in the Senate.

Via / ABC News