So, I don’t see how he’s getting out earlier.

I admit I’m annoyed that his premeditated executionisn’t treated as such — first degree murder.

His life isn’t over, though. He’ll still have a chance at turning things around, can even go into vocational school or his brother/family can hook him up with a job.

That’s not something Larry gets. To say that both suffered an equitably raw deal is insulting. Larry’s death was agonizing, he didn’t die instantly from the shots so he felt the burns of the bullet wounds in his head as he bled to death.

‘The right balance’? For a boy who was 14?

I hope that someone with a conscience is trying to help this kid instead of gloating over his misfortune.

Timothy makes an excellent point.

It’s too bad because McInerney will do half that sentence, minus the time he’s already done. He will become a harden criminal. People don’t go to jail and get rehabilitated; they go in and come out worse than what they went in as.

Unless he becomes the exception to the rule, but that won’t happen unless someone really intervenes and reaches him on his behalf and I don’t see that happening.

He’ll be turned out (raped), as well, if that hasn’t already happened.

I still believe that those who commit these types of crimes are struggling with homosexuality themselves, which makes them view it with such hatred and then they lash out. Otherwise why take it to this level?

I don’t know where we go from here. Sometimes I think that none of us have a clue what to do when situations like this arise.

I agree that “correctional facilities” are seldom correctional. McInerney is going to come out hardened and more violent. And his white supremacy dabblings are going to turn into full fledged established and committed racist activism in prison.

And yes, they are primarily punishment. But I’m very okay with punishment. Call it retribution, call it revenge, I’m cool with that. It is. But it is also just and fair and right.

And while blaming the person doesn’t go back and prevent the crime, it does announce to the world (and the criminal) that he is to blame. Him. Not his teachers, not his school, not his society, not God or godlessness, not generic and amorphous forces out there in the wide wide world, but he himself was the one who made a choice and he is the one who owns the blame.

A lot of the basis behind “I’m not to blame”, whether in a murder case or in an act of simple rudeness (“I was just frustrated at the traffic”) is based in a desire to do what one knows one should not do, but not to have the natural consequences of that action. I think it is generally counter-productive when a society detached consequences from actions.

You say that punishment doesn’t “keep someone else from doing it”. I disagree. Of course it does, every day, in every life, in grand and small ways punishment keeps you and I and everyone else from “doing it”, whatever it may be.

There are things that I don’t do that I want to do but for which the consequences are too high. Not murder, but things like texting while in traffic. But the cost is expensive if I’m caught.

Or being rude and dismissive to an annoying waiter. But if I am, I lose the respect of friends and don’t get invited to go to dinner. The cost is too high.

And while it is mostly my sense of morality, ethics, etc. that keeps me from murdering someone, the shame of being known as a murderer along with the consequence of being incarcerated definitely contributes.

But if I can convince the LAPD and my friends that society is to blame for my texting and rudeness, then I’m off scot-free. And the waiter gets to have another jerk for a customer and I endanger traffic all without any cost to me. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll think that someone is so undeserving of life and that I have no moral qualms about ending the life of such a vile person, I can convince a jury that I shouldn’t have to pay consequences. Because society is the one to blame.

Obviously there are exceptions and this isn’t some hard and fast rule. But I’m resistant to the concept that because we have to some extent failed in our own obligations as members of society to correct the injustices in Brandon McInerney’s life that therefore he shouldn’t be held accountable, that he shouldn’t be punished.

I guess I’d find it less annoying if those who blame society accepted their own role. If someone came forward and said, “Society is to blame and as a part of society I’ll serve his sentence for him” then I might give the idea greater credence. But, to my way of thinking, those who say “everyone is to blame” really mean “no one is to blame”.

But, again, I don’t know the solution.

“Andrew, I hate to break it to you, but prisons aren’t supposed to HELP anyone!”

It has been a long time since I was in Law enforcement, but I believe that BY LAW in California, the purpose of prison is NOT rehabilitation, but punishment and retribution..

I have very mixed feelings about this. One boy was brutally murdered and unfairly labeled the agressor. Another boy is going to spend his youth and young manhood in prison, being the symbolic sacrificial lamb for the sins of society. (And how can a bible believing Christian not get a kick out of that?) .

Two young lives wasted, two more lives sacrificed on the altar of entrenched homophobia.

Assuming BM even survives his years in prison, when he comes out, I doubt sincerely that he will meld back into society. And then we have another little ticking bomb loose. and none of it brings larry back.

So, sadly, timothy is right. The system takes the blame, and nothing changes.

You have to understand that there are people who are truly without any feelings for another. All they know is their own selfishness, anger, disaffection. Prisons are full of people who had more choices than many, actually.
If you read how some of the media report on LARRY, you’d think HE was the bully and BM’s response to him was somewhat JUSTIFIED.

But read between the lines, as those who are gay, or are allies like myself can see, and the reporting and the comments that it generates, points continuously to LARRY as someone who required restraint from being ‘sexually aggressive’. Giving credibility to every stereotype believed about gay males.

Brian McInerny had a long rep as an aggressor to other kids besides Larry. He’d been raised in a white supremacist abusive situation himself. He’d witnessed domestic violence and had access to firearms he knew how to use. Obviously had been taught how to use them.
In too many lame brains, it was LARRY who needed to be counseled, and taught restraint.
Unbelievably stupid and obviously dangerous thinking.

I have had more close encounters with the RESULTS of what people like Brian M do.
These days, the average television show and video game features very graphic violence and it’s results. It’s not like McInerny didn’t know what would happen to Larry’s head from two bullets pumped into it at close range.
He was just waiting and planning for his chance at it.
Prison is full of people who HAVE no feelings for anyone. Their choices require an amount of selfishness and anger and aggression most of us don’t act on. Even if there are fantasies after someone has wronged us.

As you should know, young people are TAUGHT to be extremely offended at the mere PRESENCE of a gay person. There is no act a gay person has to do to provoke violence.
Larry didn’t have to do anything but be outgoing.
He sassed BM back.
Most importantly, BM was a much bigger boy to LK’s slight build.
BM was notorious for fighting.
LK was not.

Once BM’s behavior was known, HE should have been expelled. Period.
That any discussion runs to LK having some PATTERN of aggressive behavior is so contradictory to the actual events, it’s like the insanity to CREATE a homosexual predator from a smallish, delicate and effeminate boy is more important than the violent tendencies of the other boy who killed him.

To a normal person there MUST be some reason for a kid to blow another kid’s head off with such cold precision.
And the reason given, is LK’s supposed ‘aggressive sexual advances’.

A long look, a hug of another male, wearing op gender accessories, talking back, showing up: the anti gay are so offended and paranoid, an innocuous act is characterized and reported as ‘aggressive homosexual behavior’.
I know it.
Most of our friends here know it.

I know it even better because one of Larry’s counselors from his group home knew him for a year, and she’s outraged that LK is reported as the aggressor who went to school in full drag.
THAT is not how he was, nor how he went to school day to day.
HE was the one that lived in fear of BM, and his fears were not unfounded as it turns out.
Had LK been the one who brought a weapon and killed the bully, would he have been believed as the VICTIM of an aggressor?

Almost every week for over a year we’ve seen stories of gay children being bullied to death.
LK’s situation was a murder, instead of his suicide. Yet, he’s reported as the aggressor. How does THAT even make sense except in the minds of those who believe stereotypes?

As I said, I witness the results of the utmost depravity, indifference, recklessness, cruelty and selfishness possible.
And those responsible are NOT punished enough and the public thinks there is some kernel of redemption that can be had in such people.
It’s an unrealistic dream.
You really don’t WANT them paroled, or set free. Or especially even allowed to live.
That kind of compassion is wasted on them, and enables further bad deeds.

I think I’m the only one here who works with the police.
Always, first and foremost, think of the person who is in the grave. Silent and without the capacity to defend themselves.
THAT is with whom our concerns must ALWAYS lie. Their death shouldn’t mean forgotten.
But WHY they are dead in the first place.

Its pretty dumb to suggest this is the “end” of McInerney’s life. Life doesn’t end at 39 (barring actual death). For me life began at 45 and I’m having a whale of a time.

–Priya Lynn

I greatly doubt you have a criminal conviction though. Even a relatively minor one can cause serious problems, and McInerney’s is a very high-profile case and a very serious crime. Having a serious criminal conviction like that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to find work and housing, so he’s likely to spend most of his “life” post-release on the streets.

It doesn’t really matter if McInerney got twenty years or eighty – his life is screwed either way.