Student gets 21 years for shooting gay classmate

In court for sentencing, the victim's father criticizes the jury, school officials and media.

by Catherine Saillant, Los Angeles Times

December 19, 2011

The father of a gay Oxnard junior high school student spilled his rage in a Ventura courtroom Monday, telling the convicted killer that he could not forgive him for shooting his son "with the precision of a cold-blooded assassin."

Greg King, reading a biting four-page statement to the court before Brandon McInerney was sentenced to 21 years in state prison, called jurors "incompetent" for failing to reach a verdict in the September murder trial, criticized the media for its coverage of the high-profile case and heaped blame on school officials for failing to watch over his son's well-being.

When jurors were unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial, McInerney agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and manslaughter. Under the terms of the plea bargain, the 17-year-old will not be eligible for early release, meaning he will be 39 when he is released.

McInerney had originally been charged with first-degree murder and committing a hate crime. But jurors were torn between murder and manslaughter, and several said they came to believe that McInerney had been tormented to the breaking point by Larry King's flirting.

With the tall, gangly McInerney seated a few feet away and showing no emotion, King lashed out at the teenager, calling him "a white supremacist assailant" who had been given the break "Larry never got" by jurors.

The father, though, reserved his harshest words for the Hueneme Elementary School District, which operates the junior high school where his 15-year-old son was shot twice in the back of the head on Feb. 12, 2008, by McInerney in front of stunned classmates.

Educators knew that his son had a history of acting provocatively for attention, yet they did nothing to stop King after he started going to E.O. Green Junior High School in women's high-heeled boots and makeup and began aggressively flirting with boys, the father said. The middle school student had been removed from his home for unspecified reasons and was in foster care.

Instead of protecting him from his "poor impulse control," King's father said, "they enabled and encouraged him to become more and more provocative," putting him in an unsafe position.

Though he holds McInerney responsible for shooting his son, King said the school's response since the shooting has been despicable.

District leaders have made no changes in policy or procedures, saying they are unnecessary because the school's staff followed the law in allowing Larry to augment his school uniform with women's accessories. To date, no formal changes have been made, although the school district paid $25,000 toward a $255,000 civil lawsuit settlement for King's family.

"It is obvious the school did something wrong," King spat out at the hearing. "Rather than learning from it and striving to make a safer environment for our children, they hid behind lawyers."

McInerney's neck grew flushed as King spoke. The teenager, whose feet were shackled and who wore a white T-shirt and baggy blue pants, declined to make a statement. But his attorney, Scott Wippert, said his client was remorseful.

"He has stated repeatedly that if he could go back and take back his act, he would do it in a heartbeat,'' Wippert said as his client sat silently. "He lives with this every day, every night."

The attorney said McInerney also apologized to the King family, to his own family and to classmates in the computer lab where he pulled a .22-caliber handgun out of a backpack and shot King at point-blank range. Some of his former classmates were in court Monday, wiping tears from their eyes.

Several jurors also were in court Monday, wearing "Save Brandon" bracelets.

During his remarks, King brushed off jurors as being "incompetent," drawing head shakes from some of the jurors seated near the McInerney family. Later, referring to some jurors' unwillingness to convict McInerney, King said: "I guess P.T. Barnum was correct, 'a sucker is born every minute.' "

Judge Charles Campbell said he felt compelled to defend the jurors.

"I have nothing but praise for those jurors,'' he said. "They reached what they thought was an honest and true decision based on what they saw and heard."

At the conclusion of the hourlong hearing, McInerney, a wisp of facial hair sprouting from his chin, stood and, surrounded by sheriff's deputies, mouthed "I love you" to his mother before being led to a holding cell.

His mother sobbed.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gay-slaying-20111220,0,6688049.story

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Justice Department accuses Conn. police of bias against Latinos

In a 23-page letter to town officials, federal investigators said their examination, which began in September 2009 found that the department intentionally targeted Latinos for traffic enforcement and treated Latino drivers more severely after traffic stops than other ethnic groups. In harsh language, the department criticized what it said was a deeply rooted culture of discrimination and a failure by the department to cooperate with investigators.

“This is very encouraging,” the Rev. James Manship, a Roman Catholic priest, of St. Rose of Lima church in New Haven, said in a telephone interview. Working with the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale University, Manship prepared a complaint for the Justice Department, alleging that Latinos were harassed and sometimes beaten by law enforcement personnel in East Haven.

“For us in a Latino, Catholic community, this is a season of hope and light,” Manship said. “The light glows a little bit brighter with this recognition.”

Town officials, including Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., did not return telephone calls for comment. In the past the town has denied any mistreatment.

Maturo took office last month and recently reinstated Police Chief Leonard Gallo, who had been put on paid administrative leave last year after federal authorities began an investigation of the department with an FBI raid on the chief's office. That investigation is continuing, a Justice Department spokeswoman said in a telephone interview from Washington.

East Haven is about 70 miles northeast of New York City. According to the 2010 census, it has about 30,000 people and is more than 88% white. About 10.3% of the people identify themselves as Latino, up from 4.4% in the 2000 census. The Police Department has about 50 uniformed officers.

The Justice Department examined records from Jan. 1, 2009, to Dec. 31, 2010. It said there was a pattern of discrimination and of poor supervision. For example, it found that about 40% of all traffic stops by one officer involved Latinos. Overall, the department stopped Latinos at a rate of 19.9%, though the town population of Latino drivers was about 8.3% and rises to as much as 15.5% when the surrounding areas are included.

Justice's civil rights division opened its investigation of the department's records after Manship's complaint, which alleges that Latino motorists were stopped for no reason, even as they were leaving Latino-owned businesses. The complaint also accuses some officers of assaulting Latinos in police cars and at the station. The town, the Police Department and 20 members of the police force are also defendants in a civil lawsuit, alleging discrimination and ethnic profiling.

In 2009, Manship went to a store in East Haven, where there were complaints of police harassment, and where he videotaped two police officers. The priest was charged with disorderly conduct. The charges were eventually dropped.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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From ICE

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63 arrested in ICE operation targeting criminal aliens in San Jose area
Aliens' histories include convictions for kidnapping, felony forgery and child sex abuse

SAN JOSE, Calif. – A Mexican national with a prior conviction for kidnapping is among the 63 criminal aliens taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers during a four-day operation in the San Jose area last week.

Of the 63 individuals arrested during the enforcement action, 55 have prior criminal convictions. The remaining eight have been charged with crimes, but their cases are still pending. The offenses range from selling heroin and amphetamines to child molestation and spousal abuse. The largest number of convictions, a total of 18, involve driving under the influence.

"Enhancing public safety is at the core of ICE's mission," said Timothy Aitken, field office director for ICE ERO in northern California. "This operation underscores ICE's ongoing commitment to focus on the arrest and removal of criminal aliens and others who pose a potential danger to the community."

Those arrested during last week's operation include:

• A Mexican national convicted earlier this year of felony possession of heroin for sale who was sentenced to six months in prison;
  
  
• A 49-year-old male Mexican national convicted in 2011 of child molestation;
  
  
• A 29-year-old male Mexican national with prior convictions for kidnapping and cocaine possession; and
  
  
• A 48-year-old woman from Mexico with 13 aliases who has prior felony convictions for forgery and misuse of an entry document. Having been removed from the United States five times, she now faces federal prosecution for felony re-entry after deportation. The defendant made her initial appearance in federal court Dec. 16.

With the exception of that last case, the aliens arrested during the operation are being processed administratively for removal from the country. Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining individuals will be scheduled for a hearing before an immigration judge.

This week's arrests were carried out by ICE ERO officers assigned to ICE's Fugitive Operations Program , which is responsible for locating, arresting and removing at-large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives – aliens who have ignored final orders of deportation handed down by the nation's immigration courts.

ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that targets serious criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities, such as those charged with or convicted of homicide, rape, robbery, kidnapping, major drug offenses and threats to national security. ICE also prioritizes the arrest and removal of those who game the immigration system including immigration fugitives or those criminal aliens who have been previously deported and illegally re-entered the country.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1112/111219sanjose.htm

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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A Resolution That's Easy to Keep: Resolve to be Ready

From the FBI

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Preliminary Crime Stats For the First Half of 2011

12/19/2011

According to the FBI's just-released Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report —which covers January through June 2011—the number of violent crimes and property crimes reported to us showed a decrease compared to figures from the same time frame in 2010, continuing a downward trend.

Overall, violent crimes were down 6.4 percent, while property crimes fell 3.7 percent.

Here are some highlights of our preliminary crime statistics for the first six months of 2011, as compared to the same period last year:

• The occurrence of all four offense types in the violent crime category decreased—murder was down 5.7 percent; rape dropped 5.1 percent, robbery fell 7.7 percent, and aggravated assault declined 5.9 percent. And it didn't matter what region of the country you lived in—decreases in each category were seen in the Northeast, Midwest, South, and West.
  
  
• Overall violent crime declined in all six city population groups and metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties, with most violent crime offenses showing decreases. There were some upticks: murder in cities with populations between 500,000 and 999,999 (up 1.2 percent); murder in cities with under 10,000 people (2.6 percent); rape in cities of 1 million or more (1.0 percent); rape in cities of 500,000 to 999,999 (6.7 percent); and rape in cities of 250,000 to 499.999 (0.1 percent).
  
  
• Like violent crime, all offense types in the property crime category showed decreases—burglary (down 2.2 percent), larceny-theft (4.0 percent), and motor vehicle theft (5.0 percent). And like violent crime, these declines occurred in all four regions of the country.
  
  
• All three property crime types fell in all six city population groups and in metropolitan counties. Just one exception in non-metropolitan counties—larceny-theft was up 0.5 percent.
  
  
• Arson, which declined 8.6 percent overall, also saw individual decreases in all four areas of the country and in every population group.

Uses for the UCR data: To provide law enforcement with data that can help with budget formulation, planning, resource allocation, assessment of police operations, etc., to help address crime problems at various levels.

Also, criminal justice researchers can study the nature, cause, and movement of crime over time. Legislators can draft anti-crime measures using the research findings and recommendations of law enforcement administrators, planners, and public and private entities concerned with the problem of crime. Chambers of commerce and tourism agencies can examine the data to see how it impacts the geographic jurisdictions they represent. And the news media can use crime statistics to inform the public about the state of crime locally and nationally.

What this UCR data should not be used for: To compile rankings of individual jurisdictions and institutions of higher learning and/or to evaluate the effectiveness of individual law enforcement agencies. These incomplete analyses have often created misleading perceptions that adversely affect geographic entities and their residents. UCR statistics include only jurisdictional population figures along with reported crimes, clearance, or arrest data—not the many socio-economic and other factors that cause the volume and type of crime to vary from place to place.

The preliminary full-year crime statistics will be released next summer, and the final Crime in the United States 2011 report will be available in the fall.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/december/crime-stats_121911/crime-stats_121911

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