Education

Paper Details Prosecutors’ Documents in Gay Student’s Killing

By Mark Walsh — February 12, 2009 1 min read
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Today is the anniversary of the death of Lawrence “Larry” King, the 15-year-old Oxnard, Calif., youth who was shot and killed in school, allegedly by a classmate offended by King’s homosexuality and effeminate demeanor.

The Ventura County Star newspaper reported on Wednesday that the student charged in King’s death is a follower of “racist skinhead philosophy,” according to a court document filed recently by prosecutors.

“According to prosecutors, murder suspect Brandon McInerney sat behind King in a computer lab class on Feb. 12, 2008, didn’t do anything for 20 minutes, and then without saying a word fired one shot into the back of King’s head,” the Star reported. “As the teen collapsed to the floor, McInerney stood up, looked around at his astonished classmates and delivered a ‘second, coup de grâce’ shot into King’s head, prosecutors allege.”

McInerney, 15, has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder, a hate crime, and discharging a firearm, the Star reports. The defendant’s lawyers are fighting the decision to try him as an adult, the newspaper says.

The Los Angeles Times posted this story last night about the latest developments in the case.

Last July, Newsweek magazine published this cover story about the case, titled “Young, Gay and Murdered.”

A version of this news article first appeared in The School Law Blog.