CRIME
Cedeno Trial Starts With Competing Stories
Prosecution, defense offer divergent narratives on bullied gay youth
BY ANDY HUMM
Opening statements June 28 in the
trial of Abel Cedeno, charged with
manslaughter and assault for stabbing
one classmate to death and
seriously wounding another on September 27,
2017, saw the prosecution painting the defendant
as a cold-blooded killer bent on coming to
school to slice up some students.
To the defense, Cedeno is a bullied teen who
at 18 brought a newly-purchased knife to school
for protection after six years of anti-gay bullying
and only used it when attacked by two tormentors
— Matthew McCree, 15, who died with one
cut to his heart, and Ariane LaBoy, then 16,
who was slashed multiple times but survived.
Assistant District Attorney Nancy Borko
called Cedeno a student “who didn’t bother to
come to school” — ignoring the reasons for his
extended absences due to bullying — “but came
prepared with a knife.” After Cedeno tried to
confront the bully or bullies in his class who
threw things at him that day, Borko said, “he
wanted to show his stuff.” She described Mc-
ANDY HUMM
Defendant Abel Cedeno (second from left) with attorneys Christopher
R. Lynn and Robert J. Feldman and (at the left) defense
consultant Michael Sweeney.
Cree as “walking towards” Cedeno and “going
at him” and “LaBoy trying to pull Matthew”
away before getting slashed himself.
“He brought an illegal weapon to school and
was looking for a chance to use it,” Borko said.
(While no student is supposed to carry a knife
to school, the legality of the weapon has yet to
be established.) “He wanted to stand his ground
and meet punches with deadly force,” she said.
Christopher R. Lynn, co-counsel for Cedeno,
painted a very different picture of the fi ght, saying
McCree “left his seat to go fi ght” with Cedeno
as Cedeno angrily yelled at whoever was bullying
him by throwing things at his head. “They
drew fi rst blood,” Lynn said. “Abel’s actions
were purely defensive.” He described Cedeno’s
“tortured history” as a student. “No wonder he
didn’t want to go to school. I would not have
gone either.”
Lynn described Cedeno as “the only gay kid
in the school,” while Borko with a staff counselor
witness from the Urban Assembly School for
Wildlife Conservation, Shavon Evelyn, tried to
paint it as a gay-friendly place where students
got along even though it was closed shortly after
the 2017 incident for having descended into
chaos.
Lynn said that a friend of Cedeno’s had encouraged
him to carry a knife by telling him,
“That way they’ll leave you alone.” Lynn called
the knife akin to a “box cutter” and said many
students carry such knives. He said Cedeno believed
that if there was a fi ght, “adults would
stop it, but they did not” despite the presence of
two teachers in the classroom of 25 students.
➤ ABEL CEDENO TRIAL, continued on p.39
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