Famed Berkeley "Naked Guy" dies

[chrishansenhome]

I was sad to hear of the death of Andrew Martinez, the student at UC Berkeley who fought for the right to attend university in the nude back in the early 1990's. He apparently had had mental health problems and was at the time in jail on assault and battery charges. He committed suicide by putting a bag over his head. The story is here. I kind of secretly admired him for his dogged insistence that public nudity was not only his right, but was non-prurient. There were many demonstrations at Berkeley up until the time he was expelled for refusing to don some clothing.

Comments

[vasilatos]

Oh that stinks big time! Crap. I never had much of an opinion about that guy, but sticking him in jail until he flips out enough to commit suicide seems a little extreme, just for running around naked.

[vasilatos]

Uh, also, he's pretty built.

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeedy. BTW, he wasn't put away because he was running around naked; he was put away for assault and battery. He suffered from mental health problems and had been living in a hostel, I think. I don't believe he'd been running around naked recently.

[mango-king.livejournal.com]

His death has made me very sad as well. I wish that he could have found some answers or help.