On Feb. 12, King was shot during an English class minutes after school started, and classmate Brandon McInerney, 14, was arrested a few blocks away. King later died in an Oxnard hospital, and McInerney was charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime.
It's a tragedy, McInerney's defense attorney said in an interview, but one he believes might have been avoided if someone had stepped in to help beforehand. Senior Deputy Public Defender William Quest said E.O. Green's administration knew about tension on the middle school campus and allowed the situation to fester - allegations the school district says are untrue.
...Students have said they witnessed confrontations between King and McInerney in the weeks or days before the shooting, including King's teasing McInerney and telling him that he liked him.
McInerney perceived King's treatment as harassment, Quest said. Quest, however, declined to discuss any specific confrontations or issues between the boys. He also declined to say if McInerney ever sought help from an adult to deal with the issue.
Quest said he believes school administrators supported one student expressing himself and his sexuality - King - and ignored how it affected other kids, despite complaints. Cross-dressing isn't a normal thing in adult environments, he said, yet 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds were expected to just accept it and go on.
Yes it’s the idiotic ‘Trans Panic’ defense again. It’s the victim’s fault for not conforming to gender norms, for daring to speak back to the thug bullying hir. This may not fly here in California thanks to laws passed after the first trial for the murder of Gwen Araujo. I don’t even blame the defense attorney for trying this crap, it’s his job to give the best defense possible after all. No I blame people like Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber and Sally Kern . There constant hateful and bigoted rants create the atmosphere for ‘gay panic’ and ‘trans panic’ defenses to work. They also create the atmosphere of hatred that led to the murder in the first place. They really should be charged as accomplices before the fact.
1 comment:
the scary thing is a lot of people buy into the gay and trans panic cases, i tell people the lawrence king story and he automatically gets blamed, "he shouldnt have asked him to be his valentine" ugh our society is messed up.
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com
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