On December 12, 1997, 19-year-old punk musician Brian Theodore Deneke [pictured above] was deliberately run over by 17-year-old jock Dustin Camp with his Cadillac.

Deneke died at the scene.

While Camp was later found guilty of voluntary vehicular manslaughter – and given a fine of $10 000 – he wasn’t immediately sentenced to jail.

That only came in 2001, when Camp was imprisoned for a variety of parole violations after initially being sentenced to 10 years probation.

How did the tragedy come to be? This, from VICE:

Tensions had been simmering between the teenage jocks and punks of Amarillo [Texas] for months, and Camp’s attack on Deneke—a decided punk, down to his mohawk and leather jacket—happened amid a brawl between the two groups outside the town’s IHOP.

IHOP is an all-you-can-eat American franchise, by the way.

The killing shocked Amarillo and the punk community at large, and raised general concern and accusations about the social tolerance of the Texan city:

The differences between Deneke and Camp—both white, middle-class, young men—seem small by comparison, boiling down to choices in music and dress and the distinct cultures they each inhabited.

At the time, Camp’s light sentence shocked the community, and, fearing reprisals, the judge sealed the names of the jurors, none of whom have spoken out since.

Now, a new film based on the events, called Bomb City, seems to want to grant Deneke a second life, explains The Daily Beast:

The [$10 000] fine, as the film tells us, was eventually dropped.

It’s an obvious miscarriage of justice, especially given the eyewitness testimony that Camp yelled, “I’m a ninja in my Caddy,” before hitting Deneke [above], and then, “I bet he liked that one,” after running him over.

But it gets worse, because the details of the trial are no easier to stomach:

Warren L. Clark, Camp’s defense [sic] attorney, painted the punks as violent thugs on the basis of their appearances, and emphasized [sic] Camp’s image as a wholesome, clean-cut all-American teen.

In the film, Clark—renamed as “Cameron Wilson” and played by Glenn Morshower—begs the jury to consider the fact that Camp has his whole life ahead of him, which is a tactic viewers may recognize from cases such as that of Brock Turner (i.e., cases involving white men, especially those who come from a background of privilege).

Sound familiar? Now watch the trailer:

Sure, it’s a 21-year-old story, but the film begs its audience to challenge whatever preconceptions about appearance they may have.

To all those who have been sidelined by society because of the clothes you wear, the music you listen to or the books your read, I guess this is for you.

[source:vice&dailybeast]