A track team teammate of the late Steven Liu, Jazmine Lahbabi, 17, ties a pair of running shoes to the memorial on the pedestrian bridge near Otay Ranch High School Sunday. photo by Bill Wechter
CHULA VISTA — A 17-year-old boy’s suicide has left friends, classmates and teachers distraught as they cope with the news that the Otay Ranch High School senior jumped to his death from a pedestrian bridge near the campus Friday night.
Steven Liu, who was on the school’s cross-country team, was remembered Saturday night by about 100 people at a vigil on the Santa Venetia Street bridge that spans Olympic Parkway. A makeshift memorial of posters, candles, letters, pictures and jerseys adorn the bridge.
“Steven was a great guy,” said Jazmine Lahbabi, a 17-year-old Otay Ranch High senior who visited the memorial Sunday. “He was really sweet. The sweetest guy in the world.”
Jazmine was adding a pair of black running shoes to the bridge’s fence where teammates had already placed more than a dozen pairs.
Teens have said on Facebook, Twitter and notes left at the memorial that Steven was bullied, but his cross-country coach doubted that was why the boy took his life about 5:40 p.m. Friday.
“I think people who are saying that don’t know him and don’t know his personal situation,” said Ian Cumming, who also is the Otay Ranch High athletic director.
Cumming said he was extremely close to the Chula Vista teen, whom he called an exceptional athlete. He regularly finished in the top three at the school’s cross-country races and won several this year. Steven also was an origami artist and was learning to play the guitar, the coach said.
“He was just a great person and had a lot of things going on, and like many teenagers he just didn’t have the same self image as was true about him,” Cumming said.
A crisis counseling team that includes psychologists and administrators will be at Otay Ranch High today, Manuel Rubio, a spokesman for the Sweetwater Union High School District said Sunday.
School officials are aware that students have made comments to the news media and on social media that Steven was the victim of bullying, Rubio said. He said he could not say if Steven had been bullied in the past, but nothing like that happened Friday.
“This is a student who had a lot of personal issues going on,” Rubio said.
School officials take reports of bullying seriously and try to address them, he said. Rubio said the district also partners with the local Anti-Defamation League on a program called “No Place for Hate.”
A family member reached at Steven’s home on Sunday declined to comment.
Jazmine, his friend and classmate, said she doubted bullying was behind the suicide.
“He was not your ordinary guy,” she said. “He was eccentric and outgoing, but also shy.”
In retrospect, she realizes now there may been warning signs that he was troubled.
“He had been asking his friends for the last couple of months what they thought of him,” Jazmine said. “I think he was looking for help.”
She said Steven was very competitive and could be very hard on himself.
“We cared a lot for him and tried to show it, but sometimes he would shut it out,” she said.
Melissa Venegas, who was friends with Steven on Facebook, visited the bridge memorial Sunday with her 15-year-old sister, Erika.
His death is “a big wake-up call,” said Melissa, 16, a student at Montgomery High School in Otay Mesa. “It seemed like he had a lot of friends, and he was really involved,” she said. “You just never know.”
Suicide prevention help
• Crisis Line counselors: Call (888) 724-7240
• Mental health information: Go to up2sd.org
• Social service referrals: Call 211
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