Larry King

OXNARD, CALIFORNIA – The Oxnard junior high where the shooting took place has returned to its usual rhythms, with teachers struggling to keep antsy seventh- and eighth-graders focused on midterms before the holiday break.
The portable computer lab tucked at the back of the schoolyard — the place where Larry King was gunned down in front of 25 of his classmates — has reopened. It’s been four years since it happened, and the students here have no direct connection to the day E.O. Green Junior High became part of a national story.
But one of the first questions parents ask is whether their children are safe on campus, said Julianne Peña, the school’s principal, who was brought in a year after the shooting.
But King’s parents and critics of the school’s actions in the days prior to the shooting still question whether the school district’s leaders could have done more to intervene in the deteriorating relationship between the two boys.
During this year’s trial of Brandon McInerney, who shot and killed the openly gay King, teachers testified that they felt powerless to defuse the growing tensions between the student from a dysfunctional family who felt he was being sexually harassed and the student who had begun to wear women’s high-heeled boots and makeup and to flirt with boys. They felt they couldn’t act, teachers testified, because administrators had sent out a memo saying that King was to be left alone.
After the trial, Larry’s mother, Dawn King, said she had gone to administrators to ask them to stop what she believed was her son’s inclination to act out for attention — even if it was negative attention. But she was turned back, the mother said.
“I knew, gut instinct, that something serious was going to happen,” she said. “They should have contained him, contained his behavior.”
McInerney, now 17, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in a deal that is expected to send him to prison for 21 years. He is to be sentenced Monday.
Although the school’s decision not to intervene became a theme of the trial and jurors cited it as one of the reasons they were unable to convict McInerney of first-degree murder, administrators said they would respond the same way if it were to happen again.
Leaders of the Hueneme Elementary School District, which operates E.O. Green and 10 other schools, say they have no plans to make policy changes as a result of the shooting. Supt. Jerry Dannenberg said there is no need because E.O. Green administrators acted appropriately before and after the shooting on Feb. 12, 2008.
An investigation carried out by the district’s insurance carrier determined that no laws were broken nor policies ignored, Dannenberg said. He also defended a memorandum distributed to the school’s staff a few weeks before the shooting advising them that King was within his rights. Students “don’t have to like it, but they need to give him his space.”
Dannenberg said the school board determined that, legally, no changes were necessary. In a lawsuit brought by the Kings, the district admitted no wrongdoing but did settle with the family for more than $250,000.
“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” Dannenberg said. “We’re instruments of the state, and we must implement laws equally and fairly — even if some people don’t like those laws.”
State legislators give school districts wide latitude in deciding how to carry out educational policy, said Tina Jung, spokeswoman for the California Department of Education.
The state steps in when a law is being openly flouted, as was the case with the Westminster Elementary School District in 2004 when a conservative board majority refused to incorporate language protecting gay, lesbian and transgender students. When the state threatened to withhold nearly $8 million in funding, the district board backed down.
The King-McInerney situation is unusual because it involves policies — on school safety, bullying, sexual harassment and students’ rights to explore their identities — with potentially competing goals, Jung said.
The state can offer advice, Jung said, but generally leaves it up to local school boards to decide how to react to problems on campus.
But King’s parents alleged in the suit that the school failed to exercise any local control. Instead of intervening, the school encouraged Larry’s “fatal behavior” by not advising him to tone it down or by not suspending McInerney or even their own son, the Kings alleged.
A psychologist for the Los Angeles Unified School District said that although students generally have a right to dress as they choose, behavior is a separate matter. Any student who sexually harasses another should be warned, said Judy Chiasson of LAUSD’s Human Relations, Diversity and Equity Office.
from The Los Angeles Times
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Brandon McInerney

Nearly four years after Brandon McInerney fatally shot Larry King in an Oxnard schoolroom, the case reached its conclusion Monday with a plea deal in which McInerney will serve nearly 25 years behind bars.
McInerney, 17, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter with use of a firearm during a hearing that capped years of legal jousting and a previous nine-week trial that ended in a mistrial when jurors were torn over the juvenile being tried as an adult.
The sentence for the murder charge will be waived and McInerney will accept a 21-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter at a Dec. 19 hearing. He will not get credit for the nearly four years he already has served or be eligible for parole, which will make him 38-years-old when he gets out of prison. He will transfer from juvenile hall to a state prison after he turns 18 in January.
Though the Ventura County District Attorney’s office had been steadfast in its commitment to retry McInerney as an adult on charges of first-degree murder, officials eventually acquiesced, with the knowledge another jury also could be sympathetic to McInerney’s age.
“We recognize the delicate nature of the case and the fact that both the victim and the shooter were young teens,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Frawley. “This really tugged powerfully on people.”
That McInerney had just turned 14 when he shot King in the back of the head was a theme throughout the defense’s arguments during the emotional trial. Many jurors have spoken out against the case being held in adult court, and two were in the courtroom Monday wearing “Save Brandon” bracelets.
McInerney’s lawyer had fought hard to keep the case in juvenile court.
“We are very pleased and happy that we were finally able to come to this agreement and at the same time it hurts because we said all along that he should not have been tried as an adult,” his lawyer, Scott Wippert said.
During Monday’s hearing, McInerney’s mother, Kendra, wept as Brandon — wearing a standard-issue blue jump suit and ankle shackles — pleaded guilty to the charges in a voice that has grown deeper since he was first arrested on Feb. 12, 2008.
His victim, King, 15, had been wearing women’s high heeled boots and makeup to school in the weeks leading up to the shooting as he was coming out of the closet and telling friends he was gay. Teachers testified King was becoming increasingly antagonistic and the administration was doing little to control him. Others said he was merely expressing his sexuality and it was King who was being bullied.
King had just told another student that he was changing his name to Leticia when McInerney shot him twice in the head.
The defense argued King harassed McInerney and pushed him to the edge. The prosecution said McInerney was a violent white supremacist who hated gays and plotted the murder.
On Monday, Larry’s dad, Greg King, said he stood by the district attorney’s decision but was upset at the jurors who during the trial had said they would be able to reach a verdict independent of McInerney’s age, and didn’t.
“If they had a problem with that, they should have told the judge,” he said. “I honestly believe that Brandon McInerney is a murderer who executed my son.”
But he said another trial could result in a similar hung jury, and the previous trial was extremely hard on him and his family who drove to Chatsworth every day. The trial was held outside Ventura County because of intense media coverage.”That nine weeks in the Chatsworth courtroom was physically, emotionally and financially draining,” he said. “Twenty-one years is a long time and we are satisfied that justice has been done.”
Wippert always argued McInerney was guilty of voluntary manslaughter and he felt the agreement was a win.
“I think it’s an appropriate sentence given all the circumstances and the evidence that came out in the trial,” he said.
People around the world were interested in the trial involving the shooting at E.O. Green School, which carried elements of gay rights, white supremacy, tolerance and juvenile justice.
“It’s just such a tragedy — I mean, two lives lost, in effect,” said Steven Elson, CEO of Casa Pacifica Centers for Children and Families. King stayed in the children’s center for abused, neglected and troubled teens several months before the shooting.
Monday’s plea deal may bring some closure to families and everyone who cared about one or both of the boys, Elson said. It also avoids the cost of another trial, including the emotional toll, he said.
“Frankly, I’m happy that it’s over. I think it’s about healing now,” said Jay Smith, former executive director of the now-closed Rainbow Alliance, an advocacy group for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
“I never thought he (McInerney) should spend the rest of his life in prison,” Smith said. “But there needed to be a fair middle ground, and I think this is a good idea.”
Smith said he was torn like a lot of people between the crime McInerney committed and his age at the time.
“My sense was he was still a child. He was a child committing an adult act,” he said. “But weighing his background and the horrible home life that he had, I believe that they are reasons that 50 years to life seemed extremely excessive.”
Smith said he thinks the LGBT community feels strongly that the shooting was a hate crime, an allegation dropped by prosecutors after the hung jury.
“But again, I think the bigger picture is that we’re moving on from this, and if dropping the hate crime attachment moved this along, then I think that was probably a good idea,” he said.
Officials at the Hueneme School District said they were pleased there finally was resolution to the court proceedings.
“I’m glad there is a chapter closing,” said school board member Scott Swenson.
Trustee Ralph Ramos called Monday another in a series of sad days, but at least it brings it to an end.
“It allows folks, especially the folks at E.O. Green, to put this behind them,” Ramos said. “As long as there was this specter of a trial, folks really couldn’t heal because … through testimony and through interviews, they would have to relive what happened.”
The District Attorney’s Office defended its decision to try the case in adult court in a three-page news release, saying trying McInerney in juvenile court, where he would be out when he was 25, was not acceptable for such a violent act.
“The district attorney is keenly aware that many in the community feel that McInerney should have been tried as a juvenile,” it read. “The McInerney case has resulted in strong and unprecedented emotional and philosophical outpourings, both in the community as well as the trial jury.”
The final sentence of 21 years was a just outcome, Frawley said.
And although Greg King agrees, he said no amount of time will make it any easier.
“What is closure?” he said after the hearing. “I’m going to wake up every morning and go to sleep every night for the rest of my life thinking of my son.”
from The Ventura County Star
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Scott Wippert & Robyn Bramson, Attorneys For Brandon McInerney

CHATSWORTH, CALIFORNIA – Brandon McInerney again will be tried as an adult on murder charges after a previous trial ended in a hung jury.
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office dropped a hate crime allegation against McInerney, 17, at a court hearing Wednesday but is still pursuing the special circumstance of lying in wait, which moves the trial to adult court.
The next court date is set for Nov. 21 in Ventura, and many pretrial motions, including whether to move the trial out of the county, must be heard before then.
As happened regularly during the nine-week trial in Chatsworth that ended in a mistrial in September, Wednesday’s hearing was filled with legal motions and a heavy media presence. The story of McInerney, who was 14 when he fatally shot Larry King, 15, in an Oxnard classroom, has captured international interest since the 2008 incident.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Frawley declined to comment on why his office chose not to pursue the hate crime charge, saying it would come out in court. A significant portion of the past trial was spent arguing the hate crime charge.
King was an openly gay student who wore women’s high-heeled boots and makeup to school. The prosecution argued McInerney was a white supremacist who killed King because King was gay. The defense said King sexually harassed McInerney, who had an abusive past and shot King in the heat of passion.
McInerney’s lawyers have said all 12 jurors didn’t believe McInerney was guilty of a hate crime.
“We were obviously disappointed that the district attorney didn’t do what they should have done, and that is to file this back in juvenile court where it belongs,” McInerney lawyer Scott Wippert said. “Many of the jurors have spoken out and said this is where the case belongs, and many community members have been campaigning for the district attorney to do that.”
Wippert said McInerney should be charged with voluntary manslaughter, not murder. The previous jury voted 7-5 in favor of voluntary manslaughter.
A first-degree murder conviction with a handgun enhancement carries a mandatory 50-year sentence, while a voluntary manslaughter sentence with a gun enhancement starts at 14 years.
Three of the jurors in the first case showed up Wednesday to support McInerney, wearing the slate-colored “Save Brandon” rubber bracelets that his friends and family often wear.
“I think Brandon got a raw deal,” one juror, who identified herself as Nancy, said outside the courtroom. “I think he was just a kid when it happened and he is still a kid. It should be retried in juvenile court.”
Another juror who showed up, who identified herself as Lisa S., recently sent a letter to the District Attorney’s Office saying she was upset that the district attorney contacted her for an interview about the case.
The mother of three boys, two of whom are teenagers, also said the case should have been tried in juvenile court and that she thought McInerney was being bullied by King when he snapped and killed King.
“Good for the prosecution for dropping the hate crime charge, but I think this is a manslaughter case,” she said.
A form letter asking the district attorney to reconsider the charges against McInerney has been circulating in the community.
Wippert filed a sealed motion that he wanted addressed before Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell set a date for the next hearing.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox later said the motion requested Campbell’s removal from the case. Campbell said Wippert’s motion had no bearing on Wednesday’s proceedings and that he will address it in the next 10 days.
The defense filed a similar motion toward the end of the previous trial and withdrew it as the case neared an end.
Wippert said defense lawyers haven’t decided whether to file a motion to have the case moved out of Ventura County.
During the hearing, Fox said the trial might as well be held in Ventura because of the intense media coverage nationwide. She accused the defense of “unabashed media-seeking-attention behavior.”
Outside the courtroom, McInerney’s other lawyer, Robyn Bramson, said the legal issue is whether McInerney can get a fair trial in the county.
Frawley said there were no additional costs for his staff members to retry this case because they are salaried and paid the same regardless of the time they spend. The prosecution did spend about $21,000 on expert fees, and the Sheriff’s Department spent about $120,000 on security costs because of the Chatsworth location.
Wednesday’s hearing was crowded with members of the McInerney and King families.
McInerney’s mother, Kendra, burst into tears when he walked into court. Unlike during his trial, when he was wearing pressed dress shirts and his long hair was slicked back, he wore the standard blue jumpsuit Wednesday and his hair was about 2 inches long. He remained stone-faced, as he did during most of the trial.
After the short hearing, Larry King’s father, Greg, declined to comment.
Kendra McInerney, after the hearing, said only, “I just want this to be resolved.”
from The Ventura County Star
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Larry King's Mother, Dawn King

Prosecutors vowed to immediately retry a former middle school student who shot a gay classmate, maintaining that the incident was a premeditated murder and a hate crime despite doubts by some jurors who deadlocked in the case.
But prosecutors said they are considering whether to again try Brandon McInerney as an adult, a choice that legal experts believe made it harder for them to win a conviction.
McInerney, who was 14 at the time of the killing, would face up to life in prison if he were convicted as an adult. In the juvenile system, even convicted murderers are typically released at 25.
“We will consider the fact that this was a very significantly split jury. We will consider everything,” said Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. James Ellison. “There are obviously very strong reactions on both sides and we will consider all those in how we proceed.”
In the next few weeks, the district attorney’s office will debrief jurors and the prosecution team before announcing a decision on new charges, Ellison said. An Oct. 5 court hearing has been set to discuss the matter.
Jurors said Thursday that they were deadlocked on a verdict, with seven favoring a voluntary manslaughter conviction and five pushing for first- or second-degree murder. One juror told the Associated Press that they had difficulty accepting the fact that McInerney was being tried as an adult. And jurors told defense attorneys they did not believe the killing amounted to a hate crime.
Prosecutors on Friday disagreed and said they continue to believe it was motivated by victim Larry King’s sexual orientation. They also believe McInerney was lying in wait to kill King, an allegation that automatically makes him eligible to be tried as an adult, Ellison said.
Still, prosecutors may face an uphill fight in retrying McInerney, said former Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury.
“These are extremely difficult cases,” said Bradbury, who was district attorney for 24 years.
“The public may see a straightforward murder case but this case is far more complex, firstly, because of the age of the defendant … and the manner in which he was raised by his parents, which was clearly dysfunctional and by all accounts horrific,” Bradbury said.
The raw emotions of the case make the outcome “highly unpredictable,” the former prosecutor said.
Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor, said she believes jurors thought the charges were too harsh.
“Jurors felt prosecutors overcharged and they were clearly not comfortable putting the boy away for life. They probably believed the dynamic between two adolescent boys is not the same as two adults,” Levenson said. “This was a shooting but not a traditional coldblooded killing. It had an emotionally complexity, especially one associated with adolescents.”
Defense attorney and former prosecutor Dmitry Gorin agreed.
“In a hate crime there is typically clear and convincing evidence that it was motivated by hate,” Gorin said. “Children tend to have a myriad of reasons for killing. He may have had issues with the victim being gay but that interaction was probably a lot more complex and jurors saw that.”
Gorin added: “Just like Casey Anthony, here the evidence did not support the charge but the public perception and pressure has prosecutors trying their hardest to persuade jurors and again they have failed.”
Prosecutors say McInerney, now 17, brought a .22-caliber handgun to school on Feb. 12, 2008, took a seat behind King and shot him twice in the back of the head. Prosecutor Maeve Fox described McInerney as a coldblooded, predatory killer who was motivated in part by his budding interest in white supremacist ideology.
Gay-rights advocates who followed the trial said in the past that McInerney’s attorneys were attempting to fall back on the “panic defense.”
The panic defense became a flash-point after the 2002 slaying of Gwen Araujo, a Bay Area transgender teenager who was beaten and strangled by three men. Defense attorneys for the suspects argued that their clients panicked after learning Araujo was a biological male and won a mistrial.
Defense attorneys for McInerney took a similar path and conceded that their client shot King but argued that the youth, dressed in women’s high heels and makeup, provoked McInerney by flirting with him in front of school friends.
McInerney was angered and didn’t think the school was going to do anything to stop King, so he brought a gun to school, defense attorney Scott Wippert told jurors. He began having second thoughts as he sat behind King, but when King told a girl sitting nearby that he was changing his name to Latisha, McInerney snapped, Wippert said.
Before 2000, a Juvenile Court judge would have decided whether McInerney would be tried as an adult. But that year’s voter-approved Proposition 21 transferred that power to district attorneys.
Wippert said Thursday that the initiative was passed as a gang-enforcement act to put away youthful gang criminals. But district attorneys have used it to charge defendants as young as 14 with no prior criminal records, he said.
from The Los Angeles Times
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Brandon McInerney / Larry King

CHATSWORTH, CALIFORNIA – A jury has been unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial of Brandon McInerney, the 17-year-old accused of shooting a gay classmate to death in 2008.
The jury began deliberating Friday, weighing eight weeks of testimony in a trial that included nearly 100 witnesses. Many of those testifying were students and teachers at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard who saw tensions on campus rising after 15-year-old Larry King began coming to school dressed in makeup and girl’s boots.
McInerney, then 14, shot King twice in the back of the head in a school computer lab on Feb. 12, 2008. The prosecution says it was a calculated murder carried out in part because McInerney was exploring white supremacist ideology and didn’t like homosexuals.
Defense attorneys painted a different picture, that of a bright but abused 14-year-old who snapped after being sexually harassed by King.
The trial was followed closely by gay-rights groups that have fought hard to protect gay and transgendered students from campus bullying. But as the weeks of testimony rolled on and a more nuanced portrait emerged of what was happening at E.O. Green in the weeks before the shooting, it also raised a host of thorny questions.
Why didn’t the school administrators step in to quell the tensions rising on campus after King started taunting boys on campus with flirtations that he knew would upset them? Was the defense employing a “gay panic” strategy in blaming the victim for being killed? And, more broadly, why was McInerney, who was 14 at the time of the killing, even being tried as an adult?
Over eight weeks of testimony, the prosecution laid out a case of premeditated murder by McInerney, who prosecutor Maeve Fox described as a bright boy from a broken and violent home who knew what he was doing when he brought a .22-caliber gun to school.
McInerney was upset that King had come up to him at school the day before and said, “What’s up, baby?” Fox said.
He told a defense psychologist that he found King’s attentions “disgusting” and “humiliating” and that King would have to pay for it. He told a school friend that he was going to bring a gun to school the next day, and he did, Fox said.
Then, in a school computer lab, he shot King at point-blank range in the back of the head not once but twice before dropping the weapon and stalking out of the classroom.
Those facts, unchallenged by the defense, constitute a clear case of premeditated murder, Fox said. The prosecution asked the jury to also categorize the killing as a hate crime because a prosecution witness had testified that McInerney was a budding white supremacist who hated gays.
Defense attorney Scott Wippert and co-counsel Robyn Bramson didn’t dispute that McInerney killed King. But they argued he was pushed to an emotional breaking point by King’s attentions toward him and the school’s failure to rein in King’s conduct.
They also appeared to reach out for jury sympathy by calling several of McInerney’s relatives to the stand to testify to the abuse the young boy suffered at the hands of his drug-abuser father.
McInerney was a boy who couldn’t cry, because if he did his father would smack him in the face and tell him to take it like a man, his aunts testified.
Other family members said the father seemed to delight in humiliating his son in public. The father died from a fall while his son was incarcerated.
Wippert told jurors that his client killed King but should be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, not murder.
In closing arguments, he implied that McInerney should not ever have been put in front of them because the act happened when was a youth.
“Use your common sense, use your heart, use your soul,” he told the jury. “Remember this is a 14-year-old child, and you’re going to do what’s right.”
from The Los Angeles Times

Larry King

CHATSWORTH, CALIFORNIA — Brandon McInerney’s friends and family continued to testify Tuesday during his murder trial now in its fifth week.
The week after McInerney’s aunt testified about the abuse McInerney’s father, Billy, would exact on his family, another family member testified that the aunt couldn’t be trusted.
Maura McInerney said last week that not only did Billy McInerney beat his son Brandon severely, he also sexually abused her for years.
But Shannon Maulhardt, Billy’s sister, said Tuesday she doubted that he sexually abused Maura.
Maura has a long history of drug abuse, mental health issues and completely fabricating stories, Maulhardt said.
Brandon, 17, is charged with murder and a hate crime for the 2008 fatal shooting of Larry King, 15, in an Oxnard classroom. His defense team is arguing the troubled, violent home that Brandon grew up in was part of the reason for the shooting.
Billy McInerney died in 2009.
Maulhardt said she did believe what Maura said regarding the physical abuse that Brandon suffered at the hand of his father. Others also have testified that Brandon was abused.
But she thought the sexual abuse was a lie because the family was moving from Kentucky to California at the time Maura said it started. When they came to Oxnard, they stayed at the Wagon Wheel Motel in two rooms with six family members, two adults and two dogs. There was no place where such abuse could have happened, she said.
“Not everything she tells is a lie, but some things are completely fabricated,” she said. Brandon’s older brother, Brian, who also testified on Tuesday, talked as much about his brother’s childhood as he did about weapons and World War II re-enactments.
Brian, who came to court wearing his Marine uniform, was actively involved in re-enacting WWII battles before he enlisted in the service. Many of the males in the McInerney family were interested in history and spent hours watching the History Channel.
Brian said the history books found in Brandon’s bedroom on the SS youth, as well as an Iron Cross medal and a video called, “Shooting in Realistic Environments,” belonged to him, not Brandon.
The prosecution is arguing Brandon was a white supremacist who shot King because he was gay. The defense has argued the various drawings Brandon had of Nazi symbols merely reflected his interest in history.
Brian said some of the doodles found in Brandon’s room seem to incorporate historical symbols of swastikas and eagles. But Ventura County Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox also showed him one that had the swastika with the words “white pride world wide” on it.
Brian testified that he, Billy and Brandon had often taken the .22 revolver that was used in the 2008 shooting for target practice. Of the many guns that Brandon McInerney’s grandfather had in the house, the .22 was the cheapest, most inaccurate gun, he said. “If I was going to shoot somebody, I would not use that gun,” Brian said.
“You are aware that your brother shot someone in the back of the head with that gun — twice,” asked Fox.
“Yes,” he replied.
Later, Brian said he, his brother and father shot the .22 thousands of times and it never once jammed. Previous testimony by weapons expert said the gun was cocked and ready for a third shot but it was jammed.
Brian said it was unlikely the weapon could have been cocked like that without some serious user error or unless the gun was kicked.
He also said his brother was not one to show emotion and always kept things inside.
Earlier in the day, Brandon’s best friend growing up, Kaj W., testified. Like all minors who have testified, Kaj did not give his full last name.
Kaj said he was in gym class with King, and King was staring at him while he was changing. He said King’s friends would say he had a crush on Kaj. He asked his gym teacher if he could change lockers because of it, he said. He also said Brandon had told him that King was bothering him before the shooting.
Fox asked why Kaj didn’t tell police when he was interviewed about asking to move lockers. He said he was stressed when being interviewed by police, who had pulled him out of class.
He also said he didn’t remember a statement to police when he said that Brandon was talking about white supremacy before the shooting.
The defense also started to cross-examine Simi Valley Police Department Detective Dan Swanson, who previously gave lengthy testimony on the history of white supremacy for the prosecution. The defense was allowed to postpone their questioning of him to prepare for it.
from The Ventura County Star
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Larry King

CHATSWORTH, CALIFORNIA — Larry King was a sweet, caring kid who endeared himself to certain teachers at E.O. Green School but had trouble making that same connection with students his own age, according to court testimony Monday.
“He desperately wanted to be liked but didn’t have the social skills to get along with his peers,” Susan Crowley, King’s seventh-grade special education teacher, testified at the trial of Brandon McInerney. “He often said things that were one note off the mark.”
When he came to her class wearing a pink scarf, she told him to take it off, said Crowley, who testified that she probably knew King better than anyone at the school. Then there was the jewelry and makeup that followed.
“I was concerned they were designed to draw negative attention to himself and would make him unhappy and victimized,” she said. “He couldn’t distinguish between positive and negative attention. He just wanted people to pay attention to him.”
The last time she spoke with him, she told him to take off the pink nail polish he was wearing.
King, 15, was killed a few weeks later — shot twice in the back of the head at the Oxnard school. McInerney, 17, is charged with murder and a hate crime. Crowley testified Monday on the 18th day of McInerney’s trial.
King was extremely immature for his age and didn’t have a firm grasp of his sexuality, she said. A year before he was wearing women’s high-heeled boots and telling friends he was gay, he had complained that another boy was sexually harassing him at school. King told Crowley back then that he wasn’t gay, she said.
“I think Larry was probably gay, but I don’t think he knew that,” she said. “He had a lot of years before he could figure it out.”
Crowley said she did not think former assistant principal Joy Epstein was being truthful when she testified that King’s behavior was being adequately addressed by school administrators and that very few people had complained about King’s clothing.
“It is impossible for any sentient being not to know,” Crowley said. “Every conversation I had with an adult leading up to his death was about Larry’s behavior.”
Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox asked Crowley if she thought the school staff was to blame for King’s death.
“Is blame the same as responsibility?” Crowley said.
Fox also asked her if she thought Epstein, who was openly lesbian, empowered King. Crowley said yes.
Epstein’s sexuality was an issue earlier in the day. It was the first time the jury had heard about it, although testifying teachers had danced around the subject for weeks.
Debi Goldstein, an eighth-grade math teacher who had McInerney in a class in 2008, said the problems King’s attire was causing at school were well-known among teachers and administrators, including Epstein.
“She said there were problems going on at the school at the time but it didn’t bother anybody and none of the teachers had come to complain — and that is not true,” Goldstein testified. “The teachers were upset because it was disruptive to the environment and upsetting the students.”
Under cross-examination, Goldstein said she never personally saw any of the problems King was allegedly causing. Goldstein said she didn’t know of specific complaints but heard other teachers talking about it in the lunchroom.
“I knew teachers were upset,” Goldstein said. “She (Epstein) was not doing her job as an administrator if she did not know things were bothering the staff.”
Shirley Brown, a seventh-grade teacher at E.O. Green, also testified that she didn’t think Epstein was adequately addressing the issue of King’s behavior and its impact on students.
Brown said when King came to school with thick pancake and eye makeup, she told him to take it off.
“He looked like a clown, and if a girl came into my class like that, I would tell her to go to the bathroom and wash it off,” Brown testified. “I would talk to any student who was doing anything that was making themselves a target.”
She said she complained to the head principal about King’s safety.
“My comment was that if something wasn’t done soon, Larry would be taken behind the back shed of the P.E. area and be beaten to death,” Brown said.
Fox asked Brown what she said to the administration when she complained about King’s attire.
“I said something to the effect of, ‘Gay rights? What about the rights of the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders who come here and are not ready for this information?’ ” Brown testified.
Fox also brought up a union grievance Epstein brought against Brown for making what Epstein thought were offensive homophobic and anti-Semitic remarks. Brown said the comments were grossly misunderstood and the grievance was dismissed the next day.
Brown said she once saw a group of boys chasing King, which she described as a potentially unpleasant situation. Fox asked her if she stepped in to stop the chasing.
“No,” Brown said.
from The Ventura County Star