"Valentine Road" about murder of transgender 15yo

[CallmeChaCha]

So, I just finished this documentary, and it’s taken me over two hours to write this because I can’t quite articulate what I’m feeling. The documentary is about a 14-year old boy named Brandon who shot his transgender classmate, Larry. Larry had asked Brandon to be his valentine in front of Brandon’s friends a few days prior to the shooting in 2008. [Larry was born male and had recently started wearing make-up, high heel boots, and accessories.] The documentary went into both Brandon and Larry’s fucked up childhoods, and they interviewed quite a few people. The teacher and students who were in the class at the time the shooting happened, two other former teachers, Brandon’s family and his girlfriend, Larry’s friends, the prosecutor, the defense attorneys, and the jurors from the trial.

There were quite a few people who engaged in victim blaming. The two former teachers said that Larry needed to correct his “behavior†(of wearing make-up and such) and that he would have never gotten shot had he been in their classes that year because they would have helped him correct his behavior. :? One of them, and some other people too, went on to say that the school was letting Larry break the school uniform policy by wearing makeup, heels, and jewelry, and that no other students were allowed to break the policy except Larry. What they didn’t mention, but someone else less hateful did, was that the school allowed girls to wear those things. So, wearing makeup, heels, and accessories was not, in fact, against school policy. Oh, and that same teacher wants to know who orchestrated that gay pride march they had after Larry’s death. “WHAT IS THAT?! I have huge questions!†:roll:

Other people interviewed were jurors from the trial – three of them – who thought all of Brandon’s swastika (sp?) drawings were just “doodles†because he was learning about the Nazi’s at the time and all 14-year-olds like to draw (swastikas!). And where were his civil rights because the school was so pro-Larry’s civil rights but Brandon didn’t have any civil rights, and Larry “didn’t get it†because he was wearing the high heels and the makeup!!!eleventy!111! Brandon was just solving a problem because Larry was harassing him and the school wasn’t doing anything about it because of Larry’s civil rights. BTW, Larry was also half-black so I’m not sure if that’s why they kept throwing in the term “civil rightsâ€. Since the jury was deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial, after which some of the jurors decided they would start wearing “Save Brandon†bracelets. Which brings me to the defense attorney…

So, two of Brandon’s defense attorneys were interviewed. One of them ended up tattooing “Save Brandon†on her wrist because she just loves Brandon and he’s one of her favorite people on the planet. Queue crying on her part. For some reason, I found this part creepy as fuck. I don't know why. It's like the woman had formed an unhealthy attachment to this kid. They also didn't believe Brandon should've been tried as an adult, he should've been tried in the juvenile courts because the law the allows 14-year-olds to be tried as adults was meant to target gangs and such.

Anyway, Brandon was tried as an adult. After the mistrial, the prosecutor decided to re-try the case, but they ended up settling (is that word?) and Brandon pleaded guilty to second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, and use of a firearm. He got 21 years with no possibility of parole. Some of the jurors from the first trial were shocked, and it’s an awful long time for someone who had no prior record, didn’t torture or kidnap anyone, and did any of those things that they consider appropriate for a 21-year sentence with no parole.

*sigh* I apologize for the long essay. On the one hand, I'm glad HBO showed interviews with people who are bigots because it's a good reminder to me of the world we live in (sometimes I forget and then it hits me in the ass and it's not a good feeling). On the other hand, it pisses me off to hear that many ignorant comments in such a short amount of time. It was sad to see all of these people saying "had I been there, had he done that, had he kept his feelings to himself, blah, blah, blah, none of this would've happened, blah, blah, blah" and I did cry.

tl;dr: watched a documentary about this abcnews.go.com/US/eighth-grade-shooting-larry-king-brandon-mcinerney-boys/story?id=14666577 and it made me sad. Also, my eyes almost rolled out of my head at some point.

[Kailash]

I don't understand why he wasn't convicted of murder in the first degree. It doesn't seem like there was any question that he did in fact shoot and kill Larry. In my opinion everything else just clouded the issue.

I haven't watched this documentary and don't plan on it. I do hope some good can come from it but the whole situation is so messed up I don't see how it could.

[CallmeChaCha]

I think during the trial the defense argued that Larry was harassing Brandon, and that may have had something to do with it, IMO. I don't know much about the trial except what was presented in the documentary, but from the interviews with the defense attorneys it seemed they were very adamant that Brandon should've been tried as a juvenile, not as an adult. They may have also pushed that a lot during the trial. That was one of the things the three jurors who were interviewed brought up: he was so young (even though they were told not to consider his age) and how could they send somebody that young to prison without it being "more compelling" (whatever that means).

Also, they had a clip from an ABC interview with six of the jurors and none of them believed Brandon should've been tried as an adult. That, coupled with the fact that Larry was transgender and he was supposedly harassing Brandon, could be why more than half of the jury thought he was only guilty of manslaughter.