Posts Tagged As: Lawrence King

Gay Eighth Grader Fatally Shot

Jim Burroway

February 14th, 2008

Lawrence King Lawrence King, a 15-year-old student at at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California was shot at least twice in the head by another classmate last Tuesday. Fellow students say that King was gay and was often taunted by fellow students.

King was rushed to St. John’s Regional Medical Center, where he was initially listed in critical condition. By the end of the day, his condition was reportedly improving. But today we learn that he has been declared brain dead by two neurosurgeons at the hospital on Wednesday at 2 pm. He is being kept on life support so his organs can be harvested for transplant.

Police said the 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot King at the start of the school day and fled the campus. He was arrested by police a few blocks away. Today, prosecutors charged him with premeditated murder, with a special allegation of using a firearm in the commission of a hate crime. Once King is removed from life support, prosecutors have indicated they will try McInerney as an adult.

Lawrence’s father described his son as “headstrong, confident, artistic and sweet“:

Larry King loved to sing songs by folk rock trio Crosby, Stills and Nash, and was studying “The Star-Spangled Banner” in hopes of singing it at his younger brother’s baseball games, his father said. “He had a very gifted singing voice.”

…He also enjoyed using licorice sticks to catch crawdads at Bubbling Springs Park in Port Hueneme, where his family would go for his younger brother’s baseball games.

In 2001, the Journal of Public Health reported on the results of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which found that gay youth are almost twice as likely to be subjected to extreme forms of violence requiring medical attention. According to the Los Angeles Times, a 2002 California Department of Education study found that a student who is thought to be gay is five times more likely to be threatened or injured by a weapon. And yet in the face of all this, California social conservatives continue to express outrage that the California schools are required to address the problem of bullying in schools. In 2008, does it still require the tragic death of an eighth grader to justify safe schools for everyone?

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