Show of the week: Valentine Road

In February 2008, an eighth-grader in Oxnard, Calif., used his grandfather’s revolver to kill a classmate, execution-style, in the middle of a computer class. The victim, a gay teen named Lawrence King, had recently begun experimenting with cross-dressing and talked openly of having a crush on the shooter. This devastating documentary lays bare the roots of the tragedy, chronicling both boys’ abusive childhoods and exposing the casual bigotry that King confronted daily. Says one juror who sympathized with the shooter, “He was solving a problem.” Monday, Oct. 7, at 9 p.m., HBO

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