15 Yr Old Boy shot & killed by classmate because he was gay...
Lawrence King-2007
About two weeks ago a 15 yr old California boy named Lawrence King was shot twice in the head during his computer class by a 14 year old classmate because Lawrence was gay and very out. According to some reports Lawrence had shown a romantic interest in fellow 8th grader, Brandon McInerney, but Brandon reportedly felt "humiliated" by Lawrence's crush so he walked into the computer lab and shot him twice in the head.
Ventura County, CA prosecutors will be trying McInerney as an adult and are charging him with premeditated murder, pepetrating a hate crime and using a gun in the commission of a hate crime. He faces up to 52 years in prison if he is convicted.
The young victim in this case is only 2 years older than my own son and it just makes me sick to think that this kind bigoted violence happened in a middle school. This young man by all accounts had finally become confident in himself and happy about who he was was after coming out and for someone to kill him because of it is just disgusting!
Of course I can already see the "he was gay and he had a thing for me, so I had to kill him" defense on the horizon and I hope to God that no one buys it! There are better ways of discouraging someone's romantic advances than putting 2 bullets in their head!
The kid's lawyer is trying to get them to prosecute him in family court because he feels that Brandon is not an adult and therefore should not be tried as one, but I'm sorry, at 14 he knows right from wrong and he knows what the consequences of shooting someone in the head are. He may not be a legal adult but he committed an adult crime and he should be held accountable.
More info on the story can be found here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/us/23oxnard.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin