In plea deal, youth gets 21 years for killing gay teen

If such BS is allowed, then they should allow 15 year old kids into strip clubs, buy cigarettes, go to war, have sex with 40 year olds, and so on if they can prove they are "adult enough"

This. I am not really bothered as much by the 14 year old being sentenced as an adult, if the same standard would also apply for his rights, not just responsibilities. This double standard is illogical and not fair.

reply to post by Maslo


I want to respectfully submit that the difference between these two sentences is the nature of the case. I'm going to use some quotes, but before I do, I want to suggest another way of looking at this. This is not about "the crime". We are not assigning an absolute "value" or "price" on human life in a black and white, eye-for-an-eye fashion. For the sake of brevity I will say this; Kids do not have training in regards to the Standard Operating Procedures for military service, and generally are not educated about gun safety, much less having any experience in combat training. They are not fully-formed adults in any sense of the word. There is a huge difference between being 14 and 18 in terms of emotional, social, and psychological development. The major mitigating circumstances for this case is that both of these boys suffered through various forms of abuse,coercion and influences by both the system, and their families. This was a failure in part between all of the adults around them to a greater and lesser degree, depending on whom you're talking about.

en.wikipedia.org...

Lawrence King
Lawrence Fobes "Larry" King was born on January 13, 1993[8] at the Ventura County Medical Center in Ventura, California. King was adopted at age two by Gregory and Dawn King. His biological father had abandoned his wife, and his mother was a drug addict who failed to care for her son properly.[1] King was prescribed medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and according to Gregory King, Larry had been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, a condition in which a child fails to develop relationships with his or her caregivers. He was also forced to repeat the first grade of schooling. By the third grade, King began to be bullied by his fellow students due to his effeminacy and openness about being gay, having come out at ten years old.[1]

At the age of twelve, King was placed on probation for theft and vandalism. In November 2007, he was removed from his adoptive home and placed in a group home and treatment center named Casa Pacifica[9] after he alleged that his adoptive father was physically abusing him, a charge Gregory King denied.[1]

The bullying continued when King transferred to E.O. Green Junior High School in the seventh grade, and intensified when he began attending school wearing women's accessories and clothing, high heels and makeup in January 2008. King's younger brother Rocky also suffered bullying because of Larry's appearance.[1] The school could not legally stop King from dressing as such because of a California hate crime law that prevents gender discrimination, although teachers at the school thought that his clothing was clearly in violation of school code, which prevents students from wearing clothing considered distracting.[1] The school issued a formal notice to every teacher on January 29, 2008 via email. Written by eighth-grade assistant principal Sue Parsons, it read, in part:


We have a student on campus who has chosen to express his sexuality by wearing make-up. It is his right to do so. Some kids are finding it amusing, others are bothered by it. As long as it does not cause classroom disruptions he is within his rights. We are asking that you talk to your students about being civil and non-judgmental. They don't have to like it but they need to give him his space. We are also asking you to watch for possible problems. If you wish to talk further about it please see me or Joy Epstein.[1]

Joy Epstein was one of the school's assistant principals, and also openly lesbian. Several teachers, and King's father, accused Epstein of encouraging Larry's flamboyance as part of her "political agenda."[1] King also taunted boys in the halls, saying "I know you want me" and was known to make inappropriate comments to boys while they were changing for P.E. class.[1] However, prosecuting attorneys filed court documents that stated King was not sexually harassing other students in the weeks before the shooting. McInerney and King had been in several verbal altercations described as "acrimonious" by the prosecutor.[10]

www.latimes.com...

The victim's mother, Dawn King, revealed for the first time Monday that she had contacted school officials four days before the shooting in an effort to solicit their cooperation in toning down her son's behavior. The boy had been taken from the Kings' home two months earlier by authorities because of problems at home.

en.wikipedia.org...

Brandon McInerney
Brandon David McInerney was born on January 24, 1994 in Ventura, California. His mother Kendra had a criminal history and was addicted to methamphetamine.[1][8] In 1993, Kendra accused her husband William of shooting her in the arm with a .45-caliber pistol.[1] In another incident, William McInerney choked his wife almost to unconsciousness after she accused him of stealing ADHD medication from her older son.[11] He pleaded no contest and served ten days in jail and 36 months probation on a charge of domestic violence. Between August 2000 and February 2001, William McInerney had contacted Child Protective Services at least five times about concerns of his son living with his mother.[8] In 2001, he filed a restraining order against Kendra, and in 2004, Brandon was placed in the custody of his father, as his mother had entered a drug rehabilitation program.[1]

The shooting
In July 2008, Newsweek reported that a day or two before the shooting King walked onto the basketball court in the middle of a game and asked McInerney to be his Valentine in front of the team who then made fun of McInerney.[1] Just after lunchtime on February 11, King passed McInerney in a corridor and called out, "Love you baby". Later that day King was seen "parading" back and forth in high-heeled boots and makeup in front of McInerney. According to a teacher, a group of boys was laughing at McInerney who was getting visibly upset and assistant principal Joy Epstein, noticing McInerney's reaction, wagged her finger at him.[12] When McInerney endured teasing because of the incident, he attempted to recruit other students to assault King but no one expressed interest. He then told one of King's friends to say goodbye to him "because she would never see him [King] again".[10]

This kid planned this out. He was troubled, but he was found competent. This was pre-meditated. If another person this age range planned the robbery of your home including harming and/or murdering of family, you would want them to be tried as an adult, no matter how dysfunctional their family life is.
I feel that the article souced by the OP ( Not slamming the OP, questioning the original article - www.latimes.com... ), skews the emphasis on the real issues in this case in a way that polarizes the case socially.

"Larry had a complicated life, but he did not deserve to be murdered," said the youth's father, Greg King.

The examples above and below over-simplify the issues.

McInerney shot King in a school computer lab at E.O Green Junior High in Oxnard in February 2008, after days of conflict between the boys. Students and teachers at the trial testified that King had been dressing in women's accessories and wearing makeup, and was flirting aggressively with male students on campus who did not want the attention.

The victim's mother, Dawn King, said she was told that her son had a civil right to explore his sexual identity.
"I knew, gut instinct, that something serious was going to happen," she said. "They should have contained him, contained his behavior."
Prosecutors said the first trial showed that the case was too emotional to take to trial a second time.
"The first jury was unable to keep their emotions out of it," Ventura County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Frawley said. "This really tugged powerfully at people's hearts,"

Lawrence King had obvious emotional, psychological, and behavioral issues that were being mishandled.

This is the essence of cases like these, with all of their social implications and issues. This expalins why there was such a difference in these types of sentences.
This is not about Gay v/s Straight; This is about justice being served with fairness, conscience and compassion.

Gay Student's Flamboyant Behavior Blamed For His Murder
Only a few hours had passed after 17-year-old Brandon McInerney had pled guilty to the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Lawrence "Larry" King at E.O. Green Junior High School when the media started pointing fingers.

The Los Angeles Times ran a story the same day, November 21, which said that the assistant principal at the school, who is openly gay, had been criticized for being "more intent on protecting King's civil rights" than "acknowledging that his dress and behavior were causing problems."

In a separate piece, also published Monday, the LA Times reported that the murdered teen's mother, Dawn King, had sought the help of school officials in "toning down her son's behavior" just a few days before the shooting. But she was allegedly told by the administration that King had "a civil right to explore his sexual identity."

During his live radio show on November 22, Rush Limbaugh claimed the school's progressive attitude was at fault for King's murder. "He was showing up in school dressed as a woman," Limbaugh said. "So now a confused 17-year-old is dead because the school [said] 'Ah, there's nothing we can do.'"

But Limbaugh had his facts wrong, according to Superintendent Jerry Dannenberg, who told The Huffington Post over the phone on Tuesday that King had not broken the rules of the middle school's dress code, which forbid a male student to wear dresses to school. It's true that Larry King wore heels, makeup, and jewelry to class. But none of these things were against the school's dress policy, said Dannenberg.

Dannenberg also told The Huffington Post that he did not know "for a fact" that King's mother had been rebuffed by school officials when she came to them for help before the shooting occurred.

Brandon McInerney, King's killer, was a Hitler enthusiast who was born to a meth-addicted mother and was beaten by his drug-addicted father.

McInerney was friends with neo-Nazis in the Oxnard area, according to testimony from an investigator. When law-enforcement officials searched his room, they found seven of Hitler's speeches along with a notebook full of "elaborate drawings of Nazi symbols and regalia."

On February 12, 2008, after days of conflict between the two students, McInerney, who was 14 at the time, sat down behind King in computer class around 8:00 a.m. McInerney pulled a .22 caliber handgun from his bag and shot King twice in the head, before dropping the weapon and leaving school grounds.

Neither Limbaugh nor the LA Times stories went into great detail about McInerney's background or his actions. But Limbaugh quoted freely from a Newsweek cover story on Larry King's murder, which was written in the summer of 2008, a few months after the shooting occurred. The Newsweek article described the teen as someone who liked to "slick up his curly hair" into a "Prince-like bouffant," and as someone who "acted out from an early age" and "pushed his rights as far as he could."

But was the school's tolerance of King's flamboyant behavior to blame for the fatal shooting on that tragic morning in February of 2008?

There are many who think E.O. Green Junior High, which is located roughly 60 miles west of Los Angeles, in Oxnard, California, isn't progressive enough--that the school should be teaching students to be understanding of a variety of sexual orientations.

"A more inclusive and holistic sex education is needed in our current school system," Luis Guerra told The Huffington Post in an email. Guerra is a Program Manager at the Health Initiative For Youth, a San Francisco-based organization founded in 1992 to educate young people about HIV prevention.

"This is something that sex education could have prevented," he said.

Guerra explained that implementing comprehensive sex education in middle schools can be extremely difficult, because the term "sex education" makes people think of sexual activity among children. But that's not what sex ed is, he said. Good sex ed teaches students about sexual orientation, gender identity and tolerance.

"Middle school is a good time to start addressing gender issues," said Sandi Goldstein, the project director for the California Adolescent Health Collaborative, a statewide coalition of organizations devoted to promoting adolescent health. "Schools can be a safe place to reinforce the fact that not all boys need to conform to the images of men we see in the media."

Dannenberg, the district superintendent, said that E.O. Green does offer sex ed classes, which teach students about "all the FDA-approved kinds of contraception." But the classes are optional, he said, and "don't include anything about gay rights or homosexuality in the curriculum."

In July, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that requires California's public schools to include lessons on the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender figures in its social studies classes. The bill does not say at which grade level the lessons should start.

Still, the state of California does not require schools to teach sex ed. It only mandates that HIV/AIDS education be taught to students at least once in middle school and once in high school.

reply to post by rubbertramp


Any kid/child that has the capabilities of doing such thing, and does it fully intentional and aware of it should get the death penalty in my eyes! This is how we have stupid criminals around the world, no one thinks it is wrong that a KID is being trialed as an adult!

If my own son does something stupid like this I will personally report him to the cops! Would I miss him? Of course!! Would he hate me, most likely but I am not going to have a son who has a homicide, murder under his belt! NOT THIS GUY!

Edit: So that everyone don't think I'm being harsh here, I am saying this because I have had friends where their kids have gotten to jail, have been killed due to being in gangs and the like and when you ask them "Did he ever show signs of being that way?" they usually answer "No, he was a good kid, he had an incident that happened this .... but he was just a teen, he didn't mean that" REALLY?

We as parents are too stupid sometimes to see what's really going on there, all because they are our children! Same children that will embarrass the *beep* out of you by spending his whole life in jail!

Sorry I went on a rant but I hate topics like this...bring capital punishment!