The Bronx teen convicted of fatally stabbing a classmate and injuring a second has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Abel Cedeño was found guilty of manslaughter in a bench trial in July for the 2017 slaying 15-year-old Matthew McCree, a classmate of his from the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation. Cedeño was also found guilty of criminal possession of a weapon and assault for stabbing classmate Ariane Laboy when he attempted to intervene in the altercation between Cedeño and McCree.
At trial, prosecutors argued that Cedeño had brandished the knife used in the stabbing on social media days before the incident, which they claimed was evidence he had planned the attack beforehand.
But Cedeño claimed that he had endured years of bullying because of his sexual orientation before he snapped, and had brought the knife to school to defend himself should be be attacked.
Cedeño testified during his trial that his classmates had been harassing him in class prior to the stabbing. He then excused himself to go to the bathroom, but returned with a knife. He claimed he didn’t remember stabbing anyone, but remembered being attacked.
Prosecutors acknowledged that McCree and Laboy, as well as others, had been throwing broken bits of pencils, pen caps, and balls of paper at Cedeño’s head during history class, but asserted that neither McCree nor Laboy had bullied Cedeño on a regular basis.
On Tuesday, Justice Michael Gross refused to grant a request from Cedeño’s lawyers that their client be treated as a youthful offender, saying that being a victim of bullying could not be seen as a “license for murderous rage,” reports The New York Times.
Gross also said he believed that Cedeño had been bullied, but noted that the teen had testified that he had not really known his victims and that they had not tormented him.
Cedeño addressed the court, telling Justice Gross that he was not the same person he had been two years ago, and that he was remorseful for his actions.
“I know that I was the one who brought in a knife,” he said. “I wish I could take it all back.”
Uganda's Constitutional Court upheld the bulk of Uganda's controversial Anti-Homosexuality Act, rejecting a petition seeking to overturn the law in its entirety.
The five-judge bench did strike down some components of the law as violations of the country's constitution, including the right to health and privacy.
They also struck down sections of the law allowing for the prosecution of Ugandans who fail to inform on others, including friends and neighbors, for committing homosexual acts; punishing those who allow their premises to be used to commit homosexuality; and criminalizing the transmission of a "terminal illness" through same-sex activity.
A Milwaukee school principal has been sued in federal court by a gay couple who allege he bullied, harassed, threatened, and assaulted their son for having two same-sex parents, violating the child's civil rights in the process.
The parents, referred to as M.P. and T.L. in the lawsuit, claim that Kasongo Kalumbula allegedly mistreated their son because of his family's makeup.
The lawsuit, filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, asks for a jury trial and seeks an undetermined amount in damages.
It alleges that Kalumbula, who served as the assistant principal, and later, acting principal, of the Milwaukee French Immersion School from September 2018 to October 2021, physically and verbally abused the child -- who was in first grade when the harassment started -- and routinely singled him out for discipline.
Anti-LGBTQ trolls have blamed openly gay Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for a bridge collapse in Baltimore believed to have killed six people after it was hit by a 95,000-ton cargo ship.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after the Dali, a 985-foot container ship flying the Singapore flag, crashed into the bridge's reinforced concrete support pier.
The container ship, which was traveling at about 9 miles per hour, lost both engine power and electrical power to its control and communications systems minutes before it crashed into the bridge stanchion.
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