Source: Ventura County Star and CBS News

About a hundred people walked through Ventura with candles and glow sticks in a vigil to remember slain student Larry King photo: Ventura County Star

Along with his signature black, high-heeled boots and varying shades of lipstick, friends say he wore dramatic makeup and dressed more flamboyantly in the last two weeks before he was shot to death by a classmate at an Oxnard middle school.

Link: Ventura County Star video of vigil

The cosmetics added a quirkiness to his personality, friends said. But they didn't define the 15-year-old boy Melissa Castillo knew.

"He didn't know he had a lot of friends," Castillo said. "We all thought he was funny but not in a mocking way. We all really liked him. I wish he knew that."

Castillo was standing with four of her friends at a candlelight vigil to honor Larry King, held in Ventura Friday night.

The 15-year-old E.O. Green Junior High School eighth-grader was perceived by classmates as a gay or cross-dressing student who had been bullied.

"He didn't have to tell me; I saw it. We all saw it," Castillo said.

Related: Student-led weekend tribute to slain teen attracts 1000 

The shooting on Tuesday has brought scrutiny to how middle schools in Ventura County address and prevent discrimination that can lead to violence toward teens with different sexual orientations or gender identities.

In the days leading up to his death, King was helping Castillo get ready for the school Valentine's Day dance, she said. Castillo is the co-president of the Associated Student Body.

"He'd come up to me with different ideas for the dance," she said. "He thought about getting a photo booth."

Castillo said King had been transferred to her gym class -- from eighth to sixth period -- because he was getting picked on. In gym class, he would wear regular clothes with sneakers, she said.

The Ventura County Rainbow Alliance sponsored the vigil at the Art Barn where about a hundred people gathered, some with candles to remember King.

"Our community wanted to respond to express and honor him," said Alice Woods, a coordinator with the Rainbow Alliance.

"Any 15-year-old is finding out who they are. It's normal to experiment in any direction," she said.

King was shot Tuesday morning inside a computer lab at the school. He was declared brain dead on Wednesday and taken off life support Thursday night after organ harvesting.

Ventura County Senior Deputy Medical Examiner Armando Chavez said multiple organs were donated but he could not disclose which ones they were.

The autopsy showed King died of wounds to his head.

"Obviously the manner was homicide," Chavez said.

Prosecutors have charged a 14-year-old classmate with premeditated murder with hate-crime and firearm-use enhancements.

Brandon David McInerney, who allegedly brought a handgun to E.O. Green Junior High School on Tuesday and shot King in the head, was charged in Superior Court as an adult.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox said 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.

McInerney, who was held with bail set at $770,000, made his initial court appearance Thursday, but the hearing was continued until March 21. Defense attorney Brian A. Vogel didn't return telephone messages seeking comment.

The felony complaint did not contain the reasons prosecutors filed the hate-crime enhancement, and Fox said she could not reveal them. Oxnard police spokesman David Keith said Friday the investigation was continuing and there was no information about a motive.

Students have said King was teased because he was gay. Some classmates also reported a confrontation between King and McInerney in the days before the shooting.

Authorities have not released details on a motive, and prosecutors have declined to elaborate on the hate crime charge. A hate crime is defined as an illegal action taken toward a person based on any of several criteria, such as race, religion or sexual orientation.

According to the California Healthy Kids Survey by WestEd, a nonprofit research group, 10 percent of Ventura County seventh-graders, 9 percent of ninth-graders and 7 percent of 11th-graders reported harassment based on actual or perceived sexual orientation.

"Finding ways to talk about differences as part of the regular curriculum is very important," said Debra Chasnoff, a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker working on creating tolerant and inclusive learning environments.

"There are students like Lawrence in every school. To be gender nonconforming, you don't do it lightly at that age," Chasnoff said. "There had to be something powerful going on inside of him."

School officials in Ventura County said Friday they have several programs designed to teach middle school students about tolerance and acceptance. But schools need to do more, said county Superintendent of Schools Charles Weis.

For example, he said, schools need to have more mentors and other adults who can help students find constructive ways to deal with their emotions.

"I wonder, if this kid had an outlet for his anger or his fear, whatever it was, whether this would have happened," Weis said of the shooting. "I really feel one of the reasons kids in large schools act in a variety of ways is they don't have caring adults to reach out to."

Middle school "is a difficult age to teach tolerance," said Jerry Dannenberg, superintendent of the Hueneme School District, which includes E.O. Green School.

An effective program works with kids beginning in kindergarten, he said, and follows them throughout school. Hueneme schools use such a program, called Second Step, which focuses on violence prevention and social and emotional learning.

Schools cannot work on this issue alone, however. Tolerance education has to come from all aspects of society, Dannenberg said.

Students have started gay-straight groups in 640 high schools throughout California, including a dozen in Ventura County, according to the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.

That's nearly 50 percent of high schools in the state, said network Executive Director Carolyn Laub, a statistic that speaks to growing support and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students in upper grades.

Only 14 middle schools in California have such clubs, and none are in Ventura County.

Laub said it has become clear that sexual orientation and harassment issues need to be addressed in middle schools. "Young people are coming out at earlier and earlier ages," she said.

Many tolerance programs in middle schools have traditionally focused on racial and religious discrimination. For the most part, Laub said, teachers, administrators and students haven't had as much training on how to create a safer school climate for students dealing with sexual identity issues.

Teachers, administrators and students all need more training to solve conflicts on campus, Laub said.

"I hope Larry has not died in vain," Laub said. "We need to grieve, and then we need to look at this so that this doesn't happen again."

Full article: Slain teen remembered as fun, quirky at Rainbow Alliance candlelight vigil : Oxnard : Ventura County Star
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