So many issues. . .so many failures IMO There are Two Victims here Larry *and* Brandon The article is semi-long but worth the read Rocket River _________ http://www.newsweek.com/id/147790/page/1 Kids are coming out younger, but are schools ready to handle the complex issues of identity and sexuality? For Larry King, the question had tragic implications. At 15, Lawrence King was small—5 feet 1 inch—but very hard to miss. In January, he started to show up for class at Oxnard, Calif.'s E. O. Green Junior High School decked out in women's accessories. On some days, he would slick up his curly hair in a Prince-like bouffant. Sometimes he'd paint his fingernails hot pink and dab glitter or white foundation on his cheeks. "He wore makeup better than I did," says Marissa Moreno, 13, one of his classmates. He bought a pair of stilettos at Target, and he couldn't have been prouder if he had on a varsity football jersey. He thought nothing of chasing the boys around the school in them, teetering as he ran. But on the morning of Feb. 12, Larry left his glitter and his heels at home. He came to school dressed like any other boy: tennis shoes, baggy pants, a loose sweater over a collared shirt. He seemed unhappy about something. He hadn't slept much the night before, and he told one school employee that he threw up his breakfast that morning, which he sometimes did because he obsessed over his weight. But this was different. One student noticed that as Larry walked across the quad, he kept looking back nervously over his shoulder before he slipped into his first-period English class. The teacher, Dawn Boldrin, told the students to collect their belongings, and then marched them to a nearby computer lab, so they could type out their papers on World War II. Larry found a seat in the middle of the room. Behind him, Brandon McInerney pulled up a chair. Brandon, 14, wasn't working on his paper, because he told Mrs. Boldrin he'd finished it. Instead, he opened a history book and started to read. Or at least he pretended to. "He kept looking over at Larry," says a student who was in the class that morning. "He'd look at the book and look at Larry, and look at the book and look at Larry." At 8:30 a.m., a half hour into class, Brandon quietly stood up. Then, without anyone's noticing, he removed a handgun that he had somehow sneaked to school, aimed it at Larry's head, and fired a single shot. Boldrin, who was across the room looking at another student's work, spun around. "Brandon, what the hell are you doing!" she screamed. Brandon fired at Larry a second time, tossed the gun on the ground and calmly walked through the classroom door. Police arrested him within seven minutes, a few blocks from school. Larry was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later of brain injuries. The Larry King shooting became the most prominent gay-bias crime since the murder of Matthew Shepard 10 years ago. But despite all the attention and outrage, the reason Larry died isn't as clear-cut as many people think. California's Supreme Court has just legalized gay marriage. There are gay characters on popular TV shows such as "Gossip Girl" and "Ugly Betty," and no one seems to notice. Kids like Larry are so comfortable with the concept of being openly gay that they are coming out younger and younger. One study found that the average age when kids self-identify as gay has tumbled to 13.4; their parents usually find out a year later. What you might call "the shrinking closet" is arguably a major factor in Larry's death. Even as homosexuality has become more accepted, the prospect of being openly gay in middle school raises a troubling set of issues. Kids may want to express who they are, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that means. At the same time, teachers and parents are often uncomfortable dealing with sexual issues in children so young. Schools are caught in between. How do you protect legitimate, personal expression while preventing inappropriate, sometimes harmful, behavior? Larry King was, admittedly, a problematical test case: he was a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon—it was often his first line of defense. But his story sheds light on the difficulty of defining the limits of tolerance. As E. O. Green found, finding that balance presents an enormous challenge. Larry's life was hard from the beginning. His biological mother was a drug user; his father wasn't in the picture. When Greg and Dawn King took him in at age 2, the family was told he wasn't being fed regularly. Early on, a speech impediment made Larry difficult to understand, and he repeated first grade because he had trouble reading. He was a gentle child who loved nature and crocheting, but he also acted out from an early age. "We couldn't take him to the grocery store without him shoplifting," Greg says. "We couldn't get him to clean up his room. We sent him upstairs—he'd get a screwdriver and poke holes in the walls." He was prescribed ADHD medication, and Greg says Larry was diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, a rare condition in which children never fully bond with their caregivers or parents. <CONTINUED AT THE LINK>
tough age to have to deal with such grown-up issues. middle school is already rough as it is. Raging hormones, new feelings. Long division. Being "out" seems like more of an adult decision. The gay kid may be mature enough to deal with his own identity, but those punk 13 year old boys sure as hell aren't ready to deal with a gay classmate. Middle school is where words like "***" begin to creep into the vocabulary and are thrown around more freely than anything else. Maybe Brandon just hated gay people, maybe Brandon just hated Larry for something he did to him. Maybe it was a combination of both. Either way, Brandon pulled the trigger and ended a life. Nothing should ever have to come to that, and I believe that Brandon probably was a victim of growing up in a hateful household that had no concept of tolerance. Regardless, it was a senseless tragedy.
Yeah, upon reading the whole article here is what we find out about Brandon... - Dad and Mom were meth addicts and Dad nearly choked Mom to death. - Went to live with his Dad who worked 60 miles and left him isolated. - Hung out with misfits and losers. - Developed an unhealthy obsession with Hitler. Then he's probably sexually confused and completely unstable and then is being harassed by a gay student.... Yeah thats pretty much the murderer recipe.
This is why I personally believe, with gay acceptance issues, we cannot be reactionary, but pro-active.
The gay teacher encouraging his behavior probably didn't realize it would lead to this, but she probably feels pretty awful about it now.
This is a tough case. On one hand, you have a kid who shot a classmate for being gay in premeditated, cold blood. On the other hand, the killer was a 14 year old being sexually harassed by a gay classmate. Both kids were products of broken homes. While I want to blame the school for not handling this situation better, the line between fair personal expression and disruptive attention-seeking was completely blurred here. I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do myself. I wish Brandon hadn't had such easy access to the gun, but in this case, I suspect he would have used another weapon if that wasn't available. Still, Larry would have more likely survived a stabbing than a gunshot to the head. The person who provided him the gun (or left it where he could get to it) should be prosecuted.
yeah, after reading, the school should have kicked larry out and sent him to some alternative school, he's fifteen in middle school harrassing the other boys. not that it should have led to his death, but he apparently was looking for trouble, unfortunately he picked the wrong kid to pick on.
eh I doubt racism played much of a role here... just a confused product of a broken home who couldn't deal with the flamboyantly gay guy harassing him and took matters into his own hands.
I'm not saying that racism played a role just saying the fact that with the kid having a thing for Hitler, along with all the mess he went through in his personal life, the gay and African-American factors didn't bode well for the victim
Yeah, I could see that playing a small factor, but the gay thing was probably really the issue that was messing with his mind. Who knows if he was into Hitler's ideas or just the historical aspects of the Nazi regime at the time.
I'm not sure I would totally believe the article. It is apparent many of his classmates did not like him and some of the teachers disapproved of his behavior and his right to display it. Who is to say they are not making this stuff up to possibly put some of the blame on Larry? I'm not saying they are I am just saying I don't know.
Yeah, the gay issue was no doubt the biggest of all and any factor. Like you stated in an earlier thread, middle school is not only where derogatory words start to creep in on student's minds and vocabulary but also a myriad of other things including sexuality and although it comes about, for one reason or another kids cannot handle it, gay or straight, but with the gay factor there is a lot more intolerance. I remember in 7th grade a couple of classmates were bf/gf. They ended up having sex one weekend and they told each other's friends. The guy's friend's then started making fun of the girl and it wrecked her emotionally. She had to get counseling and eventually had to switch schools. The guy was even affected because his whole demeanor changed and people, including girls, looked at him differently. Now you switch that around to where it is a student just getting hit on by another member of the same sex and it is probably 100 times worse because of the intolerance leveled against homosexuals.
Would you send to an alternative school all the boys harassing the girls? How about all the girls harassing the boys? How about all the straight boys harassing the gay boys?
first of all, i didn't know straight boys can get away with harassing who've already complained, news to me??? as far as the boys harassing him, no I don't believe they should have been disciplined because I hate gay kids look, this kid obviously had issues beyond sexuality, that's why I mentioned his age
