Clouds rolled in and there was a chill in the air on what had otherwise been a sunny San Diego Thursday, as nearly 200 community members gathered at The San Diego LGBT Community Center for a memorial and candlelight vigil in memory of Lawrence King.

Local residents joined thousands of people throughout the country in candlelight vigils honoring King, a 15-year-old Oxnard, Calif., E.O. Green Junior High boy who identified as gay. King was shot and killed in class on Feb. 12 by Brandon McInerney, 14, a fellow student who had bullied King because of his perceived sexuality and gender-nonconforming behavior.

“My immediate thought was it was a re-occurrence of the Matthew Shepherd incident,” said Kelsey Hoffman, the president of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at San Diego High-Tech High.

Hoffman was among the several people who spoke at the event co-sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, PFLAG San Diego, GSA Network and The Center.

“People are bullied about being too short or too tall, for being any number of things, and this could have happened to any student for any reason,” Hoffman, a high school senior, explained as she rallied the crowd and received a standing ovation.

Following Hoffman’s speech, the gatherers marched silently through the streets of Hillcrest to the nearby San Diego Unified School District’s Eugene Brucker Educational Center.

“The fact remains that LGBT youth still face quite a struggle in schools today,” said Hoffman’s principal, Brett Peterson, who is also a board member for GLSEN, a group committed to fighting homophobia in public schools.

“Just because it happened up in Oxnard, it’s still a very real possibility here in San Diego, or anywhere in the country,” he said.

He noted that 80 percent of students nationwide report hearing homophobic language every day.

“The more Gay Student Alliances we have, the more school districts and schools embrace laws like SB 777, I think the safer schools will be,” Peterson said.

Sen. Christine Kehoe and San Diego City Councilmember Toni Atkins also spoke at the event.

“I thought about growing up myself and coming out at a very early age, 18,” Atkins said.

“And I thought about my nephew, when he came out at 15, and what that means, and how difficult that can be,” she said, noting the importance of legislation such as California Senate Bill 777, the Safe Place to Learn Act, which local anti-GLBT activists have filed a lawsuit in U.S. Federal Court attempting to repeal.

The law, designed to protect students and youth, including those who identify as GLBT, went into effect this year and adds the terms “gender” and “sexual orientation” to the California Education Code, and expands the existing term “sex” to include gender identity, which means a person’s self-identified gender.

McInerney has been charged with premeditated murder with a hate-crime enhancement under California state law.

There are no federal laws mandating harsher sentences for crimes committed based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Federal legislation passed the House last May and the White House threatened to veto it.

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act was named for the 21-year-old college student who was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in Wyoming in October 1998.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Shepard’s murder.

The foundation created by his parents announced plans last week to launch an aggressive anti-hate campaign called “Replace Hate with Understanding, Compassion and Acceptance.” Aimed at engaging the general public, the campaign will be unveiled by Judy Shepard next month at the foundation’s Annual Make a Difference Gala, which will take place on March 29 in Denver.