Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Andrew Martinez



Luis Andrew Martinez (Andrew Martinez) was an activist who was known at the University of California, Berkeley as the Naked Guy.

In September 1992, his second year in college, he began appearing naked in public to protest what he believed was the social repression of clothing. He was arrested by campus police for indecent exposure when he jogged naked near some dormitories. The county prosecutor refused to prosecute, concluding that nudity without lewd behavior was not illegal. Martinez began strolling around campus naked, citing philosophical reasons. The university then banned nudity on campus.

After college, Martinez began to manifest symptoms of mental illness and he spent much of the next ten years in halfway houses, psychiatric institutions, homeless, and jail. Martinez showed signs of schizophrenia and was prescribed medication, but with little improvement.

On May 18, 2006, Andrew Martinez lost his life to suicide, while in jail.



Andrew Martinez 
November 15, 1972 – May 18, 2006