Horrific hate crime.

In what prosecutors have already classified as a hate crime, one eighth-grade boy shot an openly gay and gender-variant boy in a Southern California classroom on February 12. The victim was declared brain dead the next day.

The slaying sparked renewed calls for anti-bullying programs in schools and an end to right-wing anti-gay rhetoric, as well as an outpouring of grief from the boys' classmates and the LGBT community nationwide.

Brandon McInerney, 14, is accused of shooting Lawrence "Larry" King, his 15-year-old classmate, to death in front of 20 other students in a class at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles. King was openly gay and had recently been wearing make-up and jewelry to school.

According to several of his classmates, King "was often teased by other students," the Los Angeles Times reported. Another classmate told the newspaper that King's manner of dress was "freaking the guys out."

McInerney turned 14 on January 24, the minimum age at which he can be charged as an adult, which he will be tried as. He is being held on $770,000 in the Ventura County Juvenile Hall. He faces 50 years to life in prison, with an additional one to three years for the hate crime.

King lived in a group home for foster kids, but his father, Greg, was said to have been supportive of him as a gay youth. The elder King told the Ventura County Star that his son was "headstrong, artistic, and giving." He allowed his boy's organs to be harvested for transplants on February 14, saying, "If Larry had the story to write, he'd say, 'If I have to give someone a heart, I want to give it to them on Valentine's Day.'"

While prosecutors were quick to label the shooting a hate crime, they have not provided details on what led to that charge. The Los Angeles Times said that a student friend of the dead youth named Jeremiah "said King had recently told the 14-year-old boy who is alleged to have shot him that he had a crush on him. 'I see no point in shooting someone for telling them that you like them,' said Jeremiah."

Several students, including McInerney, were said to have confronted King about his sexual orientation the day of the shooting.

If King's friend's report is true, defense attorneys for McInerney may try a "gay panic" defense. Alice Kessler, director of government affairs for Equality California, said the state passed legislation to train prosecutors "to discourage the use of 'panic' evidence." She added, "The state of a mind of a defendant is a defense," but that her group opposes defenses that are "motivated by bias."

The story, coming as it did in the midst of the news of multiple murders of students at Northern Illinois University in a classroom on February 14, did not attract anywhere near the kind of national media attention that the 1999 Matthew Shepard slaying did. There have been no actions in New York in response to the incident.

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, issued a statement saying, "Right now, we don't know how exactly the anti-gay hate expressed itself in the murder of Lawrence King. We do know that he was harassed on a daily basis because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. We do know that adults at his junior high school did not stop it and that kind of tolerance of anti-gay bigotry is pervasive in our nation's schools."

The response in California to the crime has been massive, starting with a march by almost 1,000 people, mostly students, in Oxnard. The Los Angeles Times reported that there were no speeches or politicians, just a crowd chanting, "Larry, Larry, Larry" and then a clasping of hands in a moment of silence. They also carried signs mourning the boy's loss and sang the John Lennon standards "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance," the newspaper said. The march was organized by two sophomores from Hueneme High School, also in Oxnard, who spread the word on the Internet and through cell phones.

One mourner, Erin Ming, 12, a friend of the slain youth "said King was an outgoing and funny boy who stood his ground," the Times said. "When people came up and started punking him, he just stood up for himself," Ming told the newspaper.

School superintendent Jerry Dannenburg attended and supported the march. "We forget the goodness that is in most of our kids," he said.

Oxnard is often described as a "blue-collar" town of just under 200,000, where two-thirds of the populous is Latino.

California's LGBT groups organized multiple vigils around the state on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week in King's memory. State Assemblyman Mike Eng, a Monterey Park Democrat and chair of the Select Committee on Hate Crimes, introduced a new bill to focus on hate crime prevention in schools. Anti-gay discrimination in schools was banned nine years ago by the Legislature. Another law, recently passed through the leadership of out lesbian Senator Sheila Kuehl, who represents Oxnard, requiring schools to specifically combat anti-LGBT discrimination, has been threatened with a right-wing referendum this year.

Lorri L. Jean, leader of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, said at a February 15 press conference, "Both of these children [King and McInerney] were victims." She concluded, "Brandon pulled the trigger, but bigotry and hatred loaded the gun."

Ladybug said:
Today is GLBQT Day of Silence.

Sydni said:



And +1 to the OP...using Fag and Gay to put things down and ridicule someone is totally not okay. It is like using the word "nigger". You may not think it's not that powerful, but after seeing the hurt on a persons face after being assaulted with those words, you would know there's nothing right or funny about it.