Oxnard, CA school's handling of gay student's behavior comes

Post Reply New Topic

Oxnard school's handling of gay student's behavior comes under scrutiny

Teachers testify at Brandon McInerney's trial that administrators ignored warnings that fellow student Larry King's feminized attire and taunting behavior were causing problems. McInerney is accused of killing King in a classroom.

Brandon McInerney is the defendant in the Chatsworth courtroom, accused of bringing a gun to his middle school and killing gay classmate Larry King. But as the case unfolds, the school itself has come under scrutiny.

One teacher after another has testified in the murder trial about their deep worries that King's feminine attire and taunting behavior could provoke problems — and that E.O. Green Junior High administrators ignored them.

It wasn't just that King, 15, had begun wearing makeup and women's spiked-heeled boots, witnesses testified. It was that he seemed to relish making the boys squirm at his newly feminized appearance and was taunting them with comments like "I know you want me."

Full story: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0811-gay-student-20110811,0,923167.story?track=rss

Given the fact that the suspect was put in a total no-win situation by the administration, I would support a light sentence in this case. I would hope he would be given a plea deal as a juvenile and released when he is 21. Regardless of the "victim"s dress, his actions were borderline predatory and there was some mention in the article of an IEP, so maybe the "victim" should have been on the special ed department's radar and moved to a self-contained emotionally disturbed classroom. If I sound prejudiced, consider that if this was a guy harassing a girl this way, and the administration defended him and the girl shot him, there would not be any outrage. In a less hypothetical situation, no administrator would dare not confront a guy making unwanted gestures and advanced to a girl, so why would not everyone get the same protection under the rules? Even at my high school, where homosexuality was frowned upon by most students and the administration held their feelings close (even with one being strongly suspected of being a closet lesbian), the policy was no unwelcome advances from anyone towards anyone regardless of which of the 4 possible ways it can happen. And guess what? Crap got said but nobody got beat up much less shot because of their sexuality.

What happened is just terrible, but that Larry guy sounds like a real jerk. It's no wonder someone did something. That said, the something he did was obviously not an appropriate response to what sounds like sexual harassment. I don't think the harassment should be enough to reduce the kid's sentence by much. After all, it's still wrong to shoot someone if he's a jerk, and Larry doesn't really seem nearly as dangerous as he was annoying.

And yes, I think the school is to blame more than any individual party in this case.

Hold on here; it is never even border-line justifiable to shoot anyone under those circumstances. Normal, civilized people just don't do that. I could care less if this gay kid was making the other male students squirm; that doesn't warrant a death sentence. And yes, he was the "victim," no matter how many times you put the word victim in quotations. You stated that this gay kid should have been put into a special ed class for being emotionally disturbed. Well, what about the shooter? Being that he took a human life after his manhood was affronted, I would say he was the one in need of psychological help.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I wonder if you would be bending over backwards to defend the gay kid if the straight kid had been harassing him and the gay kid killed him.

A human life is a human life, so yes.
But I have to say, I detect a certain homophobia in that question.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I directed that question toward the OP. He wants a light sentence on the straight kid that killed the gay kid, and I'm wondering if he would want a light sentence on the gay kid if he had killed the straight kid. Where do you get homophobia from that? I'm gay, by the way.

I very much beg your pardon. Because your post was directly beneath mine, I just assumed that it was directed at me.
Well, you know the old saying: when you assume, you make an Ass out of you and me.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Sorry. I need to start hitting the "quote" button whenever I make a reply. It just ends up causing confusion when I don't.

It's cool.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Bringing a gun to school, shooting students, or to work and killing other employees is not to be excused for any reason.

After school, being jumped by a gang, maybe. The only reason to ever use force is if you or someone else is in danger of bodly harm or death.

In this case if the teacher or anyone else had killed the shooter before he could do any or more damage, I would be OK with that.

Put his picture in every yearbook from now till he dies, our student doing life without parole.

this.

This strikes me as another defendant trying the "gay panic" defence on for size.

Certainly he is free to raise any defence that he thinks will mitigate his culpability, but to my mind unless he can demonstrate that he was unable to appreciate the nature and consequences of his actions, the defence has little merit.

He brought a firearm to school--it is open to a jury to view this as an element of planning and deliberation, and may prove to be fatal to his cause.

Were we dealing with an assault immediately incident upon a provocation, then there might be some merit. But it should be borne in mind that provocation is not a complete defence, it is simply a mitigating factor, and can potentially justify a finding for a lesser, included offence. But I don't see the action of bringing a firearm to school as consistent with a provocation defence.

It's never even borderline justifiable to aid and abet predatory behavior against a minor. The antagonist was disturbed, creating a hostile environment, the shooter had no idea if or when the antagonist was going to escalate the situation to get physical, and the people that were supposed to intervene and protect him from this were forcing him to subject himself to it. So whether the antagonist got shot or got his head stomped on for a while by a few of the people he harassed, the shooter was out of peaceful options. The shooter was 15 years old and was forced into a situation that no normal 15 year old is capable of processing emotionally by the same people that are supposed to prevent this sort of thing way before it got anywhere near this bad. Notice that the teacher who tried to keep the peace and be neutral regarding both students sexuality is coming to the defense of the shooter, chooses her words carefully about the conduct of the gay kid, and blames the administration? Both kids needed help, more than help the gay kid needed a psychiatric intervention to nip the predatory behavior in the bud (ignoring his sexuality), and like everybody else, the shooter had a snapping point that was actually fairly high for a 15 year old (keep in mind the situation should have been handled the same way as a straight guy chronically harassing a girl and the situation was escalating) and like all 15 year olds he need support and guidance from adult leaders and those leaders were deliberately making him vulnerable.



I've gone to school where preferential treatment was given to some groups and it was an open secret. I've gone to another school where the rules were cited uniformly no matter who they were being applied to. Naturally, even though homosexuality was generally frowned upon, the school that used the rules uniformly no matter who you were (unless you were a frequent visitor to the office), did not raise the penalty for an infraction against one group or lessen it for an infraction against another, and did not treat one person's complaint more seriously than another person's complaint, had the least social tension. If your hypothetical gay student did everything possible through the administration to resolve the situation and they weren't helping, then that would need to be taken into consideration in his trial and sentencing. If the gay student was fairly quick to take matters into his own hands, then I'd think the matter should be treated like any other school shooting.

^ What I meant was, if the straight kid had been harassing the gay kid and the gay kid had killed him, would you personally have felt the need to post a topic like this, supporting a light sentence on the killer? You're typing up so many words, bending over backwards to make the straight guy's actions understandable, and I doubt you would ever rush to the defense of the gay kid if the situation were the other way around.

1) No, because 2) there would be a mad rush to the gay kid's defense by a lot of liberally minded people, and 3) the DA's office would not be trying to build up a huge politically motivated hate crime case against him to further his career.

The victim a sexual predator? Give me a break! Other than saying that he was in-your-face with his sexuality, I saw nothing in the article implying that this kid was a rapist in waiting. And might I remind you, the crime was committed in a school class room, not in some back alley or empty lot - I sincerely doubt that a lot of sexual attacks happen in a school room. And I suspect, if there was a sexual attack in a school setting, other kids would have beaten or killed the perpetrator. I'll say it again, the kid was killed because he offended another kid's sense of manhood - and that's no excuse at all.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer