Student charged in hate crime murder

Prosecutors filed a charge of murder with hate-crime and firearm-use enhancements on Feb. 14 against a 14-year-old boy who will be tried as an adult in the school shooting of a classmate who has been declared brain dead but remains on a ventilator. The charge against Brandon David McInerney was upgraded from attempted murder after authorities learned that victim Lawrence King's condition was not survivable. "When we got confirmation that he in fact was brain dead, there's state law in California that says that's good enough," said Ventura County Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox. The murder charge carries a maximum penalty of 25 years to life, with an additional maximum of 25 years for the firearms enhancement and an added one to three years for the hate-crime enhancement, Fox said. McInerney's hearing was continued until Mar. 21. He was ordered held on $770,000 bail. A message left seeking comment from McInerney's lawyer, Brian A. Vogel, was not immediately returned. The felony complaint filed by prosecutors did not contain the reasons they were seeking a hate crime enhancement, and Fox said she could not reveal them. Oxnard police have not specified a motive but said there appeared to be a personal dispute between the two. Several classmates have said King would wear feminine attire, making him an unpopular figure with other boys at his campus. 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. "He would come to school in high-heeled boots, makeup, jewelry and painted nails–the whole thing," Sweeney told the Times. King was shot in the head on the morning of Feb. 12 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. Police said a handgun was used in the attack and the 14-year-old was quickly arrested near the school. King was pronounced brain dead at St. John's Regional Medical Center the next day, Ventura County Senior Deputy Medical Examiner Craig Stevens said. Doctors planned to remove some of his organs for donation, 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."