Thrasher magazine co-founder ID’d as suicide in front of Mission Police Station 
 
 Eric Swenson, Craig Stecyk and Fausto Vitello, at the Independent foundry in San Francisco in 1983. (Photo by MoFo/www.thrashermagazine.com) 
 
 Eric Swenson, Craig Stecyk and Fausto Vitello, at the Independent foundry in San Francisco in 1983. Photo: Courtesy Thrasher Magazine Photo: Courtesy Thrasher Magazine Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Eric Swenson, skateboard business icon, dies 1 / 1 Back to Gallery 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO -- Eric Swenson, an icon in the skateboarding culture and a co-founder of Thrasher magazine, died Monday in San Francisco. A "very private person," Swenson may have chosen the police station to end his life in order to spare his loved ones from finding him, said Gwynn Vitello, Thrasher's publisher and wife of Swenson's business partner, the late Fausto Vitello. Suicide reported in front of Mission Police Station Read More A person put a gun to his head and ended his life in front of Mission Police Station as passersby watched in horror Monday morning, police said. Swenson leaves behind his wife Linda and sister Rebekah, "along with a tremendous number of admirers," Thrasher magazine said in a statement. Independent Trucks manufactured a high-quality truck - the metal connector between the skateboard and its wheels - that enabled boarders to execute the moves necessary for jumps and tricks performed on rails and curbs. “Before Thrasher skateboarding was just another trend like yo-yos, rollerblades and Hula Hoops. "Eric Swenson is really one of those guys who drives things forward," Brooke said. This was his whole approach to everything." Swenson was known as a behind the scenes workhorse. He basically got up in the morning and went to work, and that was his passion." Michael Brooke, publisher of Concrete Wave, a skateboarding magazine based in Toronto, said Wednesday that Mr. Swenson was "one of the critical architects" of the revitalized art of skateboarding.
– The skateboarding world is mourning a man who played a major role in creating the huge subculture that exists today, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Thrasher magazine co-founder Eric Swenson shot and killed himself in front of the Mission police station in San Francisco. Friends believe the 64-year-old could no longer cope with the pain from a debilitating motorbike injury he suffered years ago, and chose the police station to spare loved ones from finding his body, reports the San Francisco Examiner. Swenson, an accomplished mechanic, helped revive the skateboarding scene in the late '70s with a company making skateboarding equipment, clothes, and accessories. He founded Thrasher in 1981 with his friend Fausto Vitello. "Before Thrasher, skateboarding was just another trend like yo-yos, rollerblades and hula hoops. But now it had its own music, dialect and its own fashion style," the magazine's ad director tells the Examiner.