Sad News: Frank Meza Found Dead In LA River

malmo wrote:

dunes runner wrote:

"Meza founded Aztlan Track Club in 1974. he also coached cross-country track at Loyola High School in Los Angeles. The school said he stepped down in June for health reasons."

I didn't realize that he founded the Aztlan Track Club. I knew Carlos Alfaro, and his friend Jimmy Perez from numerous races, and ran the Cinco de Mayo 10 mile the first few years. I didn't know Frank, but no one deserved what has happened to him. Rest in peace.

Remember we still don't know the cause of death yet.

For now, I think suicide is a lot more likely than someone murdering him for this. If the police come out and say there were suspicious circumstances then maybe not, but unlikely.

+1

Very sad news, but ZERO blame goes to that thread. Zero. Actions have consequences, and ALL of his were his decisions.

Thus is very sad news and my thoughts go out to his family. Never hoped for an ending like this; I would have preferred he accept responsibility and ask for forgiveness.

That being said, I think exposing cheaters is necessary and important. We just need to be careful not to cross a line. I was told years ago when I started teaching that the best policy regarding disciplining students is, "Punish the behavior, not the child." Never make things personal. Unfortunately, there were many posters who made things personal. Posting incriminating photos of him on a bike or mile splits that are clearly inconsistent is fair game; attacking him personally goes too far. All competitors have a right to a fair competition. When someone cheats and claims an age group world record something needs to be done. He NEEDED to be DQed. You can't fail to punish someone for fear that the person may harm himself as a result (if this is, if fact, how he died - still not disclosed).

In the future, I believe the mods need to keep a close eye on similar threads and do their best to clean them up. There is no need to delete the thread, only monitor it closely and delete individual posts. Remember, if you find a post objectionable, report it! The mods can't read every single post. Bring posts to their attention and help them with their job.

We wear the chains we forge in life.

I just saw this on the abc 11:00 pm news. (channel 7 here) It hit me hard that this is really true. I know early, on the old thread, that I expressed the hope that this would not be another millie vanillie. That tragedy always bothered me. This will haunt me fora long time. I doubt I will forget any of this. The last couple days I had noticed that the media found this event "just funny". Frank Meza was being treated as a laughingstock. The intrusiveness of knocking on his door seemed too much. If only there was a way to have kept this "in house". A lifetime of embarrassment around "runners" being a just consequence. Normally running news is just interesting to us runners. Even Eliud Kipchoge's amazingness is largely unknown outside of us.

I can only imagine what he was going through. Sorry we let you down Frank. No one deserves the public humiliation that you had to endure in your private life and your public life. No one. Cyberbullying should never be tolerated and allowed. We will never see him race again so I guess a bunch of you got your wish. It's a huge loss for the running community. Huge loss. He was a talented runner. If the LA Marathon wanted to disqualify him, they could have done this quietly. There was no need for the media circus. We should support one another not focus on ways to humiliate each other. No one deserves this. I don't think anyone has gone after pedofiles and rapists to the extent that they went after Frank. I'm just really disappointed in our society right now. Makes me embarrassed to be a part of the running community.

LetsRun.com wrote:

Sudden deaths are always very sad.

Please be respectful of Frank's family. Jokes about Frank's death will not be tolerated , nor will posts blaming Good Morning America, the LA Times or internet mobs.

If you want to post on this thread, you must register as we've closed this thread to non-registered posters to try to cut down on insensitive remarks, needless speculation or blame. If you want to post rationally and respectfully about the matter, register and do so.

While we don't know the cause of death, if you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, please get help and call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

I think it would be a good idea to

always limit LR to registered posters. These threads and generally all about “insensitive remarks, needless speculation or blame.” Anonymity allows for a lot of nastiness and while that may seem entertaining at times, when crap is directed at particular individuals the consequences can be damaging. Social media can foster a lot of cruelty and we’ve all seen that it’s pretty useless to hope for anonymous posters to behave with any decency.

It's a tragedy for him and his family. They have my condolences.

I never looked at the Meza one but followed along on Mark Vaz and uncovered some stuff on Rob Young. I backed off publishing that too widely in the end as I could tell from our emails that he clearly wasn't quite "right".

It is very hard without an official arbiter in these situations. The people who do this usually aren't calculating individuals. They are people that do something stupid and get caught up in it. They enjoy the glory but then they feel like they can't let people down.

It's unsurprising that people who do this are incapable of admitting that they have done something wrong. If they were functioning, for lack of a better word, normally, then they wouldn't have had this happen in the first place.

I'm not sure what you can do. Pushing the people relentlessly for a confession clearly isn't the answer. I think there needs to be some "body" that makes the decision in these cases and just has it done with rather than endless stringing out over months in a trial by media.

That thread could have been locked last week and nothing would have changed. The guy built his whole life around a lie and it fell apart at the end. He was DQ'd from LA and people who looked up to and respected realized he had been lying to them for years. He likely took his life because he couldn't face his friends and family after lying to them all these years.

That thread was pretty tame, mostly it was people uncovering photos of him cheating at marathons and sharing them. He still hasn't been disqualified from most of them. The investigation is still relevant. They just found a picture of him on a bike yesterday.

The Yahoo article had over 1,500 comments, last time I checked, almost every single one of them is at the same level as the worst posts in that thread.

Inside Edition showed up at his house!

Smb wrote:

"While we at LetsRun never got involved in terms of front page coverage with Dr. Meza,...."

Way to backpedal, bro. Weren't you on the thread trying to figure out the right challenge to get FM to prove/disprove he could run sub 3?

+10000

You can't have your cake and eat it too Rojo.

Mr, "let's offer him $$$ to run something close,," Let's do a Mike Rossi challenge", now you backpedal, and step away.

On a different note, I found nothing wrong with anything posted in that long thread. It's an online message board. People thought he cheated, and tried to prove it. Sure there were attacks on his character, he was a cheater.

In the public square, if we must always consider that someone may be unstable and temper our criticisms then there is no free speech, and debate will suffer.

Such sad news. RIP, I hope he's at peace.

Ultra or Die wrote:

In the public square, if we must always consider that someone may be unstable and temper our criticisms then there is no free speech, and debate will suffer.

In a civilized world we dont stone someone for a parking ticket.

dunes runner wrote:

Smoove wrote:

Sad. Nothing to be done about it now - but maybe this will temper our collective bloodlust in the future. Back people into a corner, and predicting how they will react becomes impossible. Food for thought for all of us.

Exactly.

The LRC forum is unconscionable the way that it attacks people in terrible ways.

I wish it wouldn't be that way, and if it's a reflection of humanity, then that's a sad state of affairs for humanity.

Derek at marathon investigators deserve some heat here. Beyond the mob here. He brought the story to the news. He’s not blameless but will find a way to sat he’s not responsible.

Bingo! Well stated!

This guy created his own circumstances by choosing to live a dishonest life. How he decided to end it is not our problem or responsibility.

There are things we don't know: a) the cause of death and b) IF it was suicide, the reasons behind it.

It seems logical to assume that it was suicide associated with the recent news explosion, but that is still only an assumption.

IF it was suicide, then I see parallels to a story playing out in the equestrian world, where a well respected top rider committed suicide while appealing a Safesport conviction.

Obviously there are differences - the nature and severity of the charges are completely different in the two matters, and the details of the Rob Gage Safesport hearing and allegations were kept confidential, while here the investigation played out in the open. But both are similar in that an athlete committed suicide while under tremendous pressure and stress from an examination into allegations of misconduct that was discussed heavily on social media.

In both cases, it's possible to use the suicide as an argument against social media, or even against the fact of the investigations. I think doing so is a mistake. Misconduct needs to be investigated, with penalties invoked where appropriate. Allowing allegations of cheating to go unexamined for fear of how the subject will respond leaves us nowhere as a sport.

As for the social media aspects of this matter, I believe that in cases of alleged course cutting, sites like Marathon Investigations and the Meza thread on Letsrun serve a similar purpose to class action plaintiff's lawyers. There are situations of misconduct where the party with standing to act (the race management in the case of the LA marathon, or an individual in a class action lawsuit) does not have the resources to do so. Marathon Investigations and the Letsrun thread, like a class action lawsuit, fill that gap. I feel that road racing is much better off as a result of the strict scrutiny that suspicious performances have received over the last few years.

tartarm wrote:

dunes runner wrote:

Exactly.

The LRC forum is unconscionable the way that it attacks people in terrible ways.

I wish it wouldn't be that way, and if it's a reflection of humanity, then that's a sad state of affairs for humanity.

Derek at marathon investigators deserve some heat here. Beyond the mob here. He brought the story to the news. He’s not blameless but will find a way to sat he’s not responsible.

Those criticizing Derek and LRC sleuths are implicitly arguing that people ought to look the other way at cheating and lying. These critics believe that it is wrong to publicly call out a liar, because doing so is "bloodlust" and "unconscionable" and "a sad state of affairs." Those who engage in exposing liars and cheats are, according to these critics, "a mob."

Frank Meza is the one who is responsible for his suicide. He cheated over and over again, then denied it when got caught. Nobody forced him to cheat. Nobody forced him to deny that he had cheated. And nobody forced him to kill himself.

Derek did nothing wrong. He most certainly does not "deserve some heat." His posts are factually accurate and meticulously documented. He is not a purveyor of fake news, but of real journalism. He should be proud of his work exposing a serial cheater.

If you are more outraged by those who exposed a cheater than by the cheater himself, you are part of the problem.

So you both condone relentless online harassment until someone kills them selves. That’s a disgusting tact to take.

You know nothing about Frank other than what that cretin Derek wanted you to know. You know nothing about his life.

Well, I am sorry to hear this. Like everyone, followed the story but was amazed it reached the media attention that it did.

swedishbasteve wrote:

It doesn't matter if Meza cheated in a race or not. He was a part of the running community and he was publicly shamed on a national scale. Perhaps this forum is a place to question a performance, but not the place for an open and public investigation. It's very tragic that this is the outcome of a Letsrun thread.

Rip Frank.

Yes it does matter. Cheating in a race is unethical, dishonest, and immoral. Particualaly when the cheater is claiming to be one of the fastest runners in the world for his age. I never ran a marathon as fast as Meza pretended to run, but I am proud of my accomplishments because at least I know that I didn't cheat.

This is actually a great place to investigate potentially fraudulent races. Several prominent cheaters might never have been exposed if not for Lets Run.

Just be honest. You think cheating is OK and should never be exposed.

Meza's death was not Letsrun's fault. Letsrun didn't force him to cheat, didn't force him to deny cheating after he was questioned, and didn't force him to kill himself. The blame for Meza's death lies fully on Meza, not on those who exposed his endless web of lies.