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.”
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.
Police arrested a former Jackson Police Department officer who allegedly killed his ex-boyfriend in a bloody attack at a Jackson, Mississippi apartment complex.
Police mounted a search for 33-year-old Marcus Johnson in connection with the murder of 25-year-old Carlos Collins, a registered nurse who hailed from Yazoo City.
Collins was killed on April 9 at the Tapestry Northridge Apartments, off Parkway Drive near Old Canton Road, in the northeastern part of Jackson.
According to WAPT, members of Collins family said police told them that Collins succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained during the attack, and that an axe was used during the murder.
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.
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