On the morning of February 12, 2008, Brandon McInerney, 14,
a good student and athlete at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California,
left for school with his mother’s .22 cal. pistol in his backpack. Brandon
entered Computer Lab, took a seat directly behind 15-year-old Larry King, a
transgender boy who suffered from ADHD and a reactive detachment disorder.
Larry, AKA Latisha, was unable to form close relationships with the serial
foster parents appointed to care for him. At approximately 8:15 that morning,
Brandon shot Larry in the back of the head. Larry died two days
later.
Mass
media outlets and social media cast Larry (Latisha) King as a martyr of the Gay
Rights movement and Brandon as a hate-filled Neo-Nazi. Larry was buried.
Brandon pleaded guilty to 2nd -degree murder and received
a twenty-one-year prison sentence. It was, it seemed, an open and shut case.
Good vs Evil. Neo-Nazi killed innocent gay kid. But, the facts of this tragedy
-- that befell both boys -- reveal quite a different story.
Larry
King’s father had abandoned King, his brother, Rocky, and their drug-addicted
mother who was declared unfit to keep them by the courts. Both boys spent their
formative years being passed from one foster home to the next. Larry was later
adopted but when child services charged his adoptive father of abusing Larry,
Larry was placed in a group home. Larry/Latisha wore high heels, lipstick, and
feminine clothing to class at E.O. Green. A state of California
anti-discrimination law prohibited A.O. Green’s administration from reining in
King’s distracting behavior.
Brandon
McInerney’s mother was at the time of the shooting a drug-addicted “meth head”
incapable of loving and nurturing her son. His father, an addict, was an
abusive man who shot Brandon’s mother with a .45 caliber pistol when she
accused him of stealing Brandon’s ADHD medication. (On a happy note, Brandon’s
mother has been sober for some time, works as a drug counselor, and has
developed a close relationship with her son. Both Brandon and his mother,
according to emails I have received from her, are working hard to put the past
behind them and build new lives.)
Beginning
one year prior to Larry King’s death, Larry began sexually taunting Brandon in
the schoolyard. While Brandon was standing with friends, Larry would parade by
in drag, pucker his rouged lips, blow Brandon a kiss, and shout
things like, “You know you want me!” and “Love you, baby.” Larry’s harassing
behavior was uninvited, unwanted, and caused Brandon to suffer humiliation.
Then, three days before Valentine’s Day, 2008, while Brandon was in the school
gym playing basketball with friends, Larry, in drag, walked up behind him,
kissed Brandon on the cheek and asked Brandon to be his Valentine. How much
sexual abuse is a healthy 15-year-old heterosexual boy without any parental
support, school administrative protection, and/or faith supposed to
endure?
E.O
Green’s faculty and parents had split over what to do. Some felt Larry’s dress
and behavior were disruptive and asked the E.O. Green vice principal, Joy
Epstein, a lesbian and gay rights activist, to intervene. Others,
disregarding Larry’s personality disorder and troubled past, supported Larry’s
borderline behavior. Some of the female faculty members gave Larry
feminine accessories and coached him on dress and demeanor. They lobbied Joy
Epstein on Larry’s behalf.
Ms. Epstein, in service to her cause and
in complete denial of Brandon McInerney’s right to protection against sexual
harassment by another student, refused to call King in and discipline him for
sexually harassing Brandon. Both boys were left adrift in a maelstrom of
parental neglect, pubescent stirrings, and bereft of a caring adult who would
-- without bias and with common sense -- look after their well-being and the
well-being of the other students. After the shooting, after Larry’s burial, and
Brandon’s incarceration, the school district rewarded Joy Epstein with a post
at another school where she continues to pursue her professional goals and
lobby for gay rights.
“If”
McInerney was a girl and “if” King was a heterosexual boy harassing McInerney,
would Joy Epstein and the school district have acted to stop the sexual
harassment of a girl by a boy?
Brandon
McInerney was, prior to Larry King’s harassment of him, a good student and an
accomplished athlete.
Were it not for one boy’s death and the other’s incarceration,
this story would read like a comedy of errors. Instead, it is a tragedy of
national proportions. Across America young boys are being made to accept all
forms of sexual behavior when in fact they are not emotionally or
psychologically equipped to do so. The very idea that the State would protect
the rights of an eighth-grade child to parade around campus in drag is inane.
Issues of sexual orientation should not be worked out on school campuses.
Children with these complex issues should work on them privately so
that a healthy learning environment may be maintained.
Boyhood is and has
been under attack for some time. All boys, especially white boys, are rebuked
for their masculinity. They watch as girls are told they are special. They are
told they are privileged, guilty, and must atone for their sins as if they are
themselves were white supremacists. The expectation for white boys is that they
should get in line behind girls, children of color, and illegal immigrants. At
the same time these boys are exposed to video games that show far more blood
and violence than that depicted in a chase of the Roadrunner by Wile E.
Coyote. Is it any wonder that some on the fringe are reacting
violently?
If we want to stop
boys from killing, the assault on boyhood must come to an end.
Noel Anenberg, author of THE DOG BOY and THE KARMA KAPER,
is writing WHY A BOY KILLED, a crime novel to be published in late 2020.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/08/ideology_the_schools_and_murder__the_mcinerneyking_case.html
