(02-15) 04:00 PST Oxnard, Ventura County -- Prosecutors filed a charge of murder with a hate-crime enhancement Thursday against a 14-year-old boy in the school shooting of a classmate who has been declared brain dead. Prosecutors said they would try Brandon David McInerney as an adult. They changed the charge from attempted murder after learning that the victim, 15-year-old Lawrence King, will not survive. The murder charge carries a maximum penalty of 25 years to life, with an additional maximum of 25 years for a firearms enhancement and an added one to three years for the hate-crime enhancement, prosecutors said. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/15/BASBV36ER.DTL Newly (Feb 15) released information about the shooting, the 15 yr old victim, Lawrence King, and his 14 yr old killer, Brandon McInerney, from the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-oxnard15feb15,1,1414535.story?page=1

Death penalty.

The boy should first get some physcological treatment. Then they should question where the gun came from, and the vigilance of the parents. Then death penalty.

Since it would be a hate crime and first degree Murder I would say life without the possibility of parole. I don't believe in the death penalty because it costs the taxpayers to much for appeals and is an easy out for the perp.

Dang, that is a tough one. What if the assailant was 13? or 12? or 10? If we don't hold a 14 year-old responsible for a contract to buy a pack of chewing gum, can we reasonably hold him responsible for deliberate murder? And which adults failed in their responsibility in keeping a 14-year-old from having a handgun in ANY unsupervised situation? I don't think there's a punishment gruesome enough that it would deter hormone-poisoned sexually-insecure violence-prone 14-year-old boys, so there's no deterrence value in whatever punishment we choose. And I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the perpetrator had NOT been able to obtain a gun. My suspicion is that the two boys would have had a fist fight, the assailant would have suspended from school or given detention, and both he and his victim would eventually have grown up reasonably normally. I don't know the answer to this one.

That is such a horrible event. There is no excuses for murder, however our society acknowledges that children do not of make good decisions. That is way children can not inter into legal contracts, if they own property or have money it must be but in trust or guardianship. In many states they don't have a say in custody issues. They must live with an adult and be under the supervision of an adult. So if children can not be treated as adults under normal circumstances why is it OK to consider them adults in these situations. There needs to be Justice, but it should take a course that is consistent with the way we treat children in other aspect of their lives.

At least life imprisonment with no possibility of parole..but I object to having to pay to feed animals like that. You know I get really tired of this 'treat them as a child shit'''when I was 7 I knew it wasn't right to murder people and that I would be punished.

The problem here is that our generation taught his generation our intolerance. Children learn from their parents and those of the prior generation. You can argue they learn from their peers also but who did their peers learn from? That's right, us. Now that we've let the cat out of the bag it's kind of hard getting the little bugger back in. The child is responsible for his actions but so also is the person who allowed him the weapon through a sale or neglect and I certainly don't mean the manufacturer of the gun. No one want's to take the responsibility for what is rightly theirs. I can't see putting him in jail for life but surely he needs to be taken out of society for some time.

That is a tough question to answer. However, it sounds like this is a case of a hate crime. The one who got shot had gender identification issues(Larry Kind, 15), trying to find his place in the world, trying to make out as to who he was and the one who shot him (14 yr old boy) was hateful of him or anyone like him due to ignorance of society, etc. I feel that he should get extensive psychological therapy and get time in prison for the crime he committed. He took a life, regardless of the way the 15 year old boy(Lary Kind) was living his life. This is not the first case that I have known about and I am praying for all those who are going through gender identity issues. I pray that they will find out who they are and I pray for society and parents in hopes that the children will not be brought up in the dark. May the 15 year old (Larry King) rest in peace and that the family get comfort in their loss. Charges Filed in SoCal School Shooting 10 hours ago OXNARD, Calif. (AP) — Prosecutors on Thursday charged a 14-year-old boy with attempted murder and said he committed a hate crime in the classroom shooting of an eighth-grader who was declared brain dead. Prosecutors would not say why they filed a hate-crime enhancement with the attempted murder count, but several classmates said the 15-year-old victim, Lawrence King, sometimes wore makeup, high heels and other feminine attire. Prosecutors want the suspect tried as an adult and expect to upgrade the charges after King is taken off a ventilator for organ donation. "It is inevitable that this is going to become a murder case," Ventura County prosecutor Maeve Fox said. King was shot in the head Tuesday morning during a class at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, police said. More than 20 other students were in the room at the time. Fox said she could not discuss the facts behind the allegation of a hate crime because those details of the case have not been publicly disclosed. Oxnard police have not specified a motive but said there appeared to be a personal dispute between the two. King sometimes came to school wearing makeup and high heels, eighth-grader Nicholas Cortez, 14, told The Associated Press. Another eighth-grader, Michael Sweeney, said King's appearance was "freaking the guys out," the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. "He would come to school in high-heeled boots, makeup, jewelry and painted nails — the whole thing," Sweeney told the Times. King was pronounced brain dead at St. John's Regional Medical Center on Wednesday, said Craig Stevens, senior deputy medical examiner in Ventura County. Doctors planned to remove some of his organs for donation Thursday, Stevens said. "I think that's what he would have wanted," King's father, Greg King, told the Ventura County Star. Lawrence King had been under the care of the county foster care system and lived at Casa Pacifica, a nearby center for abused and neglected children, said Steve Elson, the facility's chief executive. "We're are all stunned and it's just an unspeakable tragedy," Elson said Wednesday. "This is a very big traumatic experience for all of us." Hosted by Google Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I'm not a big fan of this kind of terminology generally (full disclosure: it doesn't bother me much, either), but this kid needs to spend the rest of his life in a California pound-me-in-the-ass prison with a 6'4" cellmate named Bubba.

Wouldn't that be considered a "hate crime"?