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Thanks to my son, Jon, for making me aware of this.
According to the witness, the driver of the Cadillac said "I'm a ninja in my Caddy" and then ran Brian Deneke down.
The date was December 12th, 1997. The place was Amarillo, Texas. The driver of the car, who would be convicted for the murder, was Dustin Camp. Dustin was an athlete, a high school football player and a "clean cut" kid. His lawyer kept on stressing how clean cut he was at his trial. It must have worked, because Dustin got 10 years probation and a $10,000 fine. (He would violate his probation in 2001 and end up serving 5 years of an 8 year sentence, but that is another story.)
Brian was a punk.
He started off as a skater, became attracted to punk music and soon affected the dress and style of the alternative culture. He was thrown out of the Boy Scouts for being different and the Scout Master punted Brian's skate board across the yard. That would be brought up at Dustin Camp's trial to show how "different" Brian was.
Kids in the main-stream culture of Amarillo, what they called the "white hats" for their fondness for wearing college athletic caps, found Brian a likely target. He looked different and was non-vilolent. According to the Houston Press "Intimidation had become such a fixture in Deneke's life that he'd earned the nicknames "Punch," as in human punching bag, and "Fist Magnet."
Brian's father said "He took a lot of verbal and physical abuse from people. We tried to explain to him that if you dress that way, have your hair that way, people are gonna act negative towards you, and that's just the way it is."
"And he said it's not right, they shouldn't. And he's right, they shouldn't. But people do."
The jock versus punk hatred and violence is nothing new. Not even how the violence escalated into murder. People have always attacked other people for being different. Brian could have been attacked and killed for being a Jew, a Christian, a racial minority or a homosexual. There probably isn't a group around today that hasn't been a victim at one time or another in their history.
But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold memorials. Maybe we need MORE memorials to hold back the hate.
There are memorial concerts all over. You can visit the Brian Deneke website at Link or Wikipedia at Link
My son's band among others is playing at the Blind Pig Ann Arbor (see Link) starting at 10 PM.
Maybe I'll see you there....I'll be the old man trying to stay awake.
Peace.
According to the witness, the driver of the Cadillac said "I'm a ninja in my Caddy" and then ran Brian Deneke down.
The date was December 12th, 1997. The place was Amarillo, Texas. The driver of the car, who would be convicted for the murder, was Dustin Camp. Dustin was an athlete, a high school football player and a "clean cut" kid. His lawyer kept on stressing how clean cut he was at his trial. It must have worked, because Dustin got 10 years probation and a $10,000 fine. (He would violate his probation in 2001 and end up serving 5 years of an 8 year sentence, but that is another story.)
Brian was a punk.
He started off as a skater, became attracted to punk music and soon affected the dress and style of the alternative culture. He was thrown out of the Boy Scouts for being different and the Scout Master punted Brian's skate board across the yard. That would be brought up at Dustin Camp's trial to show how "different" Brian was.
Kids in the main-stream culture of Amarillo, what they called the "white hats" for their fondness for wearing college athletic caps, found Brian a likely target. He looked different and was non-vilolent. According to the Houston Press "Intimidation had become such a fixture in Deneke's life that he'd earned the nicknames "Punch," as in human punching bag, and "Fist Magnet."
Brian's father said "He took a lot of verbal and physical abuse from people. We tried to explain to him that if you dress that way, have your hair that way, people are gonna act negative towards you, and that's just the way it is."
"And he said it's not right, they shouldn't. And he's right, they shouldn't. But people do."
The jock versus punk hatred and violence is nothing new. Not even how the violence escalated into murder. People have always attacked other people for being different. Brian could have been attacked and killed for being a Jew, a Christian, a racial minority or a homosexual. There probably isn't a group around today that hasn't been a victim at one time or another in their history.
But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold memorials. Maybe we need MORE memorials to hold back the hate.
There are memorial concerts all over. You can visit the Brian Deneke website at Link or Wikipedia at Link
My son's band among others is playing at the Blind Pig Ann Arbor (see Link) starting at 10 PM.
Maybe I'll see you there....I'll be the old man trying to stay awake.
Peace.
