Lawrence King Remembered: A Year Later

The murder of Lawrence King didn't get nearly the media attention that Matthew Shepard's 1998 murder got, but there will be those who will be thinking of King on February 12th.

It was on that day one year ago that 15-year-old King, an openly gay eighth grade student in Oxnard, Calif. who sometimes wore makeup, jewelry and women's clothing to school, was shot to death by 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, a fellow student who has been charged—as an adult—with premeditated murder and committing a hate crime.

According to The San Jose Mercury News, the Ventura County district attorney's office just this week filed new court documents in response to an appeal filed by McInerney's defense attorneys who allege that prosecutors had abused their discretion by charging their client as an adult.

However, the district attorney's office maintains that McInerney should be tried as an adult because he carried out a premeditated execution-style murder of King.

Witnesses cited in the district attorney's filings say that McInerney sat behind King in a computer lab class on that fateful day for about 20 minutes when without a word he fired one shot into the back of King's head.

After King collapsed, McInerney stood up and fired a second shot into King before stalking out of the classroom.

The district attorney's filings also asserts that McInerney had been known to bully students, including King, and had publicly stated that he was going to shoot King.

While the case makes its way through the legal system (a preliminary hearing is slated for March 17), a California-based non-profit called GroundSpark seeks to spark a national dialogue about youth and gender through nationwide screenings of a feature-length documentary called Straightlaced—How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up. Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Debra Chasnoff, GroundSpark's executive director, the film will be screened in states including Wyoming, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Alabama in the coming weeks and months. For more information about the film, visit GroundSpark.

In the meantime, take a moment to remember King on February 12.

Image courtesy of The Advocate