Death at UC Irvine suspected to be a suicide [Updated]

Police are investigating a 23-year-old Irvine resident’s death as a suspected suicide, according to the county coroner.

The man was found dead Friday afternoon at 4300 Campus Drive on the UC Irvine campus after university police received a call at 5:01 p.m., according to the coroner’s office.

UPDATE:
The UCI LGBT Resource Center and campus police are reporting that the resident was a transgender male known for his activism in the university’s LGBT community. We previously reported the gender as female, based on information provided by the coroner’s office.

An autopsy is scheduled for the first part of the coming week.

The New University, UCI’s campus newspaper, reported eyewitness testimony of someone jumping off the Social Science Parking Structure along Campus Drive sometime after 5 p.m. The police response was immediate, the newspaper reported.

School counselors arrived to the scene to provide aid as well, and the structure was blocked off soon after the incident, according to the New University’s story published Friday night.

In January 2012, an 18-year-old Santa Ana man also jumped off the seventh level of the Social Science Parking Structure in an apparent suicide. Andy Chau, a freshman at UC San Diego, died at the scene.

He was visiting a friend at the campus at the time, according to Daily Pilot archives.

— Bradley Zint

Twitter: @bradleyzint