The Daily News reports that Buckel left a suicide note in a shopping cart near his body that said he hoped his death was “honorable” and “might serve others.”
The New York Times said it received an emailed copy of the note, which also said, “Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”
Buckel was the lead attorney in in a lawsuit involving Brandon Teena, a transgender man who was murdered in Nebraska. Hilary Swank won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Teena in the 1999 movie “Boys Don’t Cry.”
Buckel also served as marriage project director at Lambda Legal, a national organization that fights for LGBT rights, where he was the strategist behind same-sex marriage cases in New Jersey and Iowa.
Susan Sommer, a former Lambda Legal attorney who is now the general counsel for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice in New York City, told the Times that Buckel “was all about justice, but he was also all about what it means to be human.”
Sommer added, “He was a very smart and methodical lawyer. He knew his craft and his trade and was strategic in how to build the blocks toward a sweeping victory.”
Terribly sad. I wonder what the underlying reasons were.
Yeah, good question. I wonder if it is his age. At 60, you are beginning to think about the end of your career. I am 65, and am retiring. I am evaluating what I did and what I did not do. In some ways, I feel good - i have savings, my retirement will be OK. In other ways, not so much - I didn’t quite get what I wanted done. Perhaps he had this sort of existential crisis - at 60, he didn’t change the world, and was unlikely to do so in the remaining time. Hence, a dramatic act. The problem with the dramatic act is that he will soon be forgotten. RIP.
If you been truly present for just one person, you have changed the world.
The self-immolations by Vietnamese monks in the mid '60s come to mind and they did galvanize the world’s attention and resistance to that war. Sadly, his death will not have that same impact and we will find little to honor ion it. R.I.P.
With all respect due to Theodoric of York, if only this clearly-caring and concerned man had given us some piece of communication, to inform us of his thought processes before doing this to himself.
If only he had, those of us who remain might have been properly able to give honor and respect to such a man by heeding his clear message to the rest of us and acting–both in our own lives and collectively–upon his prophetic warning.
“Naaaaaah!”