killing of Oxnard student | Et Cetera: Publick and Privat Curiosities

Ellen DeGeneres Speaks about the Killing of Larry King

February 29, 2008 — Patrick Zimmerman

Fellow Students at Larry King’s Memorial Service in Port Hueneme, California

Larry King’s memorial service was attended by more than 500 people in Port Hueneme, California. The service drew a diverse group of mourners who said that the killing had touched them deeply. Several students wore buttons bearing his picture. Lawrence “Larry” King was remembered Friday as a sensitive child, who on one recent Christmas helped his mother crochet hundreds of scarves so that U.S. troops in Afghanistan wouldn’t be without a holiday gift. “God knit Larry together and made him wonderfully complex,” the Rev. Dan Birchfield of Westminster Presbyterian Church told the crowd as he stood in front of a large photograph of the victim. “Larry was a masterpiece.”

The memorial service was a somber hourlong reflection on King’s life as a boy growing up in and around Oxnard, California. It was also a chance for his family, seated in a front row of Westminster Presbyterian Church, to offer a fuller portrait of the boy. King came to the public’s attention in the days after the classroom killing when it was revealed that another boy had targeted him after a falling out between the two about King’s sexual orientation.

The shooting has stunned residents of Oxnard, a laid-back middle-class beach community just north of Malibu. It has also drawn a strong reaction from gay and civil rights groups.