Teen in gay-student slaying pleads guilty
The Los Angeles Times reports that the Oxnard teen who shot a gay classmate he believed was flirting with him has agreed to spend the next 21 years in prison, a plea deal that ends a case that drew national attention and ignited debate on how schools should deal with openly gay students.
Brandon McInerney, who was 14 when he pulled a gun out of his backpack and shot Larry King, 15, twice in the head in 2008, has already served nearly four years in jail and would be released by the time he is 38, under terms of the deal.
“Larry had a complicated life, but he did not deserve to be murdered,” the youth’s father, Greg King, said after a Nov. 21 court hearing.
McInerney’s first trial ended with jurors split between convicting him of voluntary manslaughter and first-degree murder. Several of the jurors have since spoken in favor of a plea bargain, in order to avoid a second trial.
Prosecutors, in initially deciding to try McInerney a second time, had already dropped a key allegation that the shooting was motivated by a hatred of homosexuals, an accusation that several jurors in the original trial said they did not believe.
Benetton pulls pope kissing ads
USA Today reports clothing retailer Benetton pulled a provocative ad with Pope Benedict XVI kissing a Muslim cleric Nov. 16 after the Vatican threatened legal action.
Vatican spokesperson the Rev. Federico Lombardi called the ad campaign a “totally unacceptable” show of “grave disrespect.”
The image of Benedict kissing Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed El-Tayeb, imam of al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, was pulled almost immediately after the Vatican protested.
“We reiterate that the meaning of this campaign is exclusively to combat the culture of hatred in all its forms,” a Benetton spokesperson said in an official statement.
The Italian company’s “UNHATE” campaign features digitally altered photos of world leaders kissing each other on the mouth, including President Obama with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Chinese leader Hu Jintao, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. n
— compiled by Larry Nichols