Teen Who Posed with Cat and Lasers for Yearbook Photo Commits Suicide

Over the weekend of February 21/22 2015, while everyone was concerned about Colorado's ‘Snowmageddon 2015’ and The Oscars, a piece of news went by- seemingly unnoticed.

The young man who wanted to use a photo of himself along with his cat for his yearbook photo last fall, and who was mocked all over the internet because of it, took his own life. He was 17.

He was ‘The Laser Cat Yearbook Photo’ guy. His name was Draven Rodriguez. He lived in Schenectady, New York. On February 19th, Draven committed suicide.

Draven became known because of one picture of him. His Schenectady High School yearbook photo submission, with Mr. Bigglesworth. The school wouldn’t let Draven use the photo. Policy. They also probably thought he’d get too much grief about it. Turns out, he got grief about it, just the same. Maybe MORE SO because of the rejection.

Everybody has seen the photo. You’d have to guess that 9 out of 10 people don’t know the young man in the photo’s name, they just see an awkward guy with his cat and some lasers.

According to reports, he seemed like your average kid. It was just a jovial kind of thing, that picture. Draven actually WANTED the picture out there on the net- to help get support to use it in the yearbook. He thought it was funny. Cheesy, funny.

But, when that picture went viral, who among us didn’t think- at least for a second- that this whole thing would end up bad?

Coincidentally, a 2015 Oscar winner for Best Documentary (Short Form) did make it a point to talk about her own son’s suicide:

From ABC News:

"I lost my son," Perry told reporters after the speech. "We need to talk about suicide out loud to try to work against the stigma and silence around suicide because the best prevention for suicide is awareness and discussion and not trying sweep it under the rug."

Suicide is the third largest cause of death for teens, across the U.S. In Colorado, suicide is the SECOND cause of death in teens.

If you have any concerns about your children and their thoughts/actions- you can get help

Contact the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado in Larimer and in Weld Counties along with The Second Wind Fund.

In 1985, Billy Joel wrote “Second Wind” in the effort to prevent teen suicide-

You can join the fight against suicide in Colorado by taking part in the '2015 Taking Strides to Save Lives 5K' at CSU on April 4th.