8th Grade Hate Crime

In Oxnard, California, Lawrence King, 15, was shot in a junior high school computer lab by a fellow student. Prosecutors are calling it a hate crime because a few weeks earlier, King publicly stating that he was gay. After he said this, other classmates had harassed him, including 14-year-old Brandon McInerney who shot King. The incident shocked both residents of Oxnard, a middle-class laid back community north of Malibu, and civil rights groups. David Keith, spokesman for the Oxnard Police department, said that there has never been a school shooting, let alone one relating to a hate crime.
The California Health Survey of 2005 stated that junior high students are more likely to be harassed by fellow students because of sexual orientation or gender identity then those who are in high school. This fact is also true for schools around the country. Mr. Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, said that more and more junior high students are coming out or expressing different gender identities at young ages. He also said, "Unfortunately, society has not matured at the same age".
Prosecutors charged Brandon as an adult with murder as a premeditated hate crime and gun possession. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 52 years to life in prison.

Hate crimes have been a part of American society since the early colonization of the states. African Americans have also been a victim to these hate crimes. The Civil Rights Movement was a time for the African American community to try to prove to the United States as a whole that skin color does not matter. Hopefully everyone in the world can see that there is so much more worse things going on in the world than a person's skin color, sexual orientation, or how they act.