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Loading ...Hearing begins in Lawrence King case
07.21.2009 7:20am EDT
(Ventura, Calif.) A police sergeant says a Southern California junior high school student made threats about a gay classmate a day before he allegedly shot him.
Sgt. Kevin Baysinger testified Monday at the preliminary hearing for 15-year-old Brandon McInerney of Oxnard.Baysinger says he interviewed students at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard who talked about a feud between the teen and victim Larry King, who was killed in a classroom in February 2008.
McInerney, who is charged as an adult, has pleaded not guilty to murder and a hate crime.
The police sergeant says McInerney bragged he had guns at home and told one of the victim’s friends the day before the shooting, “Tell Larry goodbye because you’re not going to see him again.”
Doug–apparently you don’t know what “trying someone as an adult means”. The age to be tried as an adult is 18, but that is only for certain classes of criminal offenses. It is up to the judge to determine if a crime is serious enough to be responsible for the criminals own actions. In this case we have a premeditated murder. It wasn’t an act of panic, defense or accident. King was told the day before his death that he was a dead man walking. This is the act of someone who knows what he is about to do and is fully aware of his actions. He must be tried as an adult, and given a sentence as such. Now, I do not believe, but not uncertain, that he can be given the death penalty because of his age. But if he isn’t tried as an adult then he only goes to a juvenile detention till he’s 18 or 21 depending on the juvey law in that state. Then he is released with basically a fresh start on life. I don’t think any judge no matter how radically anti-gay he/she is is going to try him as a child.
Well, I support a 15 year old who PREMEDITATES MURDER as an adult – most definitely. 15 today is not what 15 used to be and again… PREMEDITATED. Enough said.
If this child is prosecuted as an adult, then we put into question all the predetermined age requirements of both state and federal laws. Driving, drinking, smoking, voting, sex, etc. Who, then, is to say that a 14 year-old is too young to be a willing participant in sexual relations?
It’s becoming apparent that our society does not desire to rehabilitate our penal population. We would rather get them out of sight. What about getting this child to become a better citizen who could live with diversity? No? Because trying him as an adult, with all that comes with this punishment, will increase his recidivism. What about his parents? His adult family? His mentors? His school teachers? Is he really the only one to blame? How can one not believe that the adults around him created this problem?
This boy was a freshman in high school when he did this. I can remember thinking how stupid, naieve, and messed up the freshmen at university were, and yet because we don’t want to recify our failure to raise, teach, and mentor this boy we will try him as an adult. We will exponentially decrease his opportunity to heal and return to society, and just get him out of sight.
15 is old enough to know better. He should definitely be tried as an adult and serve an adult sentence. I clearly remember being 15, and I knew it was wrong to harm other people even if I didn’t agree with them. Being tried as a juvenile is too lenient since the crime basically disappears off his record once he turns 21. This murder needs to weigh on him for the rest of his natural life.
We have a juvenile court system for good reasons. I do not support simply arbitrarily turning children into adults whenever it suits us.
One of my moments of pride in the LGBT community was when the local LGBT groups came out and asked that he not be tried as an adult despite the glaring ugliness of his act.
There are many people in this world that grow up with abusive, hate-filled parents and they don’t all shoot people in the head. Saying Brandon McInerney had a crappy childhood & that he is a victim of the abusive home he grew up in is all ell and good, but it does not absolve him of responsibilty in Lawrence King’s death. He took someone’s life and at 15 he should have known that was wrong, regardless of his upbringing.
It’s sad that his life is essentially ruined & that he’ll most likely go to prison for a long time, but he is the one that pulled that trigger, he is the one that planned the murder, he is the one that attempted to get other students to help him beat the hell out of Lawrence King in the weeks prior to the killing. He was old enough to know the consequences of his actions and he should be held accountable for them.
Do the boys who were told that they would not see Larry again, bear no responsibility for this tragedy? In this day and age when kids end up doing what they say they will do, someone needs to check on the violent braggers. Check their home, check their families. Threatening to kill is not child’s play anymore.
Irene
As another Larry who grew up in the Ventura/Oxnard area, but in the 1970s, and went through the Ventura school system, it appears that the place has not changed very much with the years. I am not surprised at all. I was the brunt of anti-gay taunts and physical violence back then, and I am not surprised that the backwater that is my old home town is still having these issues and crimes. Until Ventura County grows up and comes to terms with its predjudice and hate, these things will continue to happen there. I get shivers thinking about how scared I was growing up there and the fear of being out in the 70s. I wish this young man’s life was not for nothing and this case will change things there. My condolences to his family and friends.
When I was 15 I surely knew that firing bullets into people will kill them…he did the crime now he needs to do his time. A strong message needs to be sent that this behavior will NOT be tolerated in our society.I have zero sympathy for him!
They were both kids. One is now dead, the other is all but a dead man walking. McInerney’s father had a long and violent criminal history, and somehow the system saw fit to leave him there and be poisoned. There’s already one dead boy. I don’t see any gain or benefit in trying his murderer as an adult, because all that does is confirm a grim suspicion–if you have unfit and abusive parents, and you act out based on what you learn from them, then you were disposable enough not to merit legal intervention by the state, and once you’ve done the crime, you’re essentially even worse than the felon who twisted you. The boy needs to do time, perhaps as long as 15 years, with a focus on using that time to re-socialize him and return him to society. It would’ve been hard for foster care to damage McInerney more than his own parents did, but he didn’t even get that option.
Come on people. He’s 15. I don’t support a fifteen year old being tried as an adult. Do you really remember what it was like as a fifteen year old?
The world was so different at that age, and he is so molded by his parents and the environment around him that he has not yet been fully developed yet. I feel that he should have an appropriate punishment that seeks reform so that he can hopefully change enough to come out as a better adult. Which is what he still has yet to become.
Just because we hate someone doesn’t make them an adult. 15 is a child.
If you’re going to go down this road, if you love a 15-year-old, does that make them an adult too?
Before we forget, let’s all recognize the culpability of 15-year-old murderer Brandon’s parents. They shaped this criminal and allowed him to have guns in their home.
Larry’s family should sue them in civil court and leave them homeless. The world is full of rotten parents and bankrupting them for their brats’ crimes is one way to send a positive message.
Raise a homophobic gay-killer, eat out of a Dumpster.
How can a murderer — hate crime or not — or his defendants be stupid enough to plead “not guilty”? The kid alone would be a selfcontradicting bigot (though, that’s not past him), but his adult defendants?!
He’s going away for murder. And, with faith in the jury, a hate crime too.
And all as an adult.
OMG this tragedy keeps getting more tradgic. To find out it was premeditated, with comments to Larry’s friends! Being tried as an adult appears to be appropriate. How was this child raised that guns are an appropriate way to resolve a difference.