Post by Lady Stripey on Dec 6, 2008 0:31:39 GMT -5
This is the story of Brian Deneke....but it is also a plea from me to stop intolerance. Brian Deneke was killed December 12, 1997. He was 19 years old. Killed for being punk.
I did not write the following. A friend of Brians did. This is his story.......
Brian Deneke was one of the kindest and most courageous people I have ever known. I met Brian when he was 14 and I used to hang out with his brother Jason. He was kind of quiet back then, especially compared to how outspoken he became in the years to come. Over the years, each time I came back to Amarillo, I could see not only how Brian grew as an individual, but the effect that he had on the people around him. Amarillo is a city of about 160,000 and there's not much around it for a few hours drive. Most everyone who grows up there complains that there's very little to do. Brian always managed to find something. He was always encouraging the people around him to do something to make their town a better place: publishing zines, putting together punk rock shows- from local kids on guitar and home-made percussion, to talking out of town bands like Naked Aggression into playing free shows in the park while paying for their expenses from the money he saved. The police in Amarillo tended to be very intolerant of anything to do with gatherings of those not in Amarillo's mainstream. When Brian was 16, at the Egg, a punk club that had been set up in a commercially zoned building, with no residencies for several blocks away. Police were trying to force the people there to hear music to leave, claiming there were noise complaints. Brian wouldn't accept our right to assemble being infringed (among the other dangerous things happening that night was poetry reading) so he refused to go and when the officer threatened force, Brian told him what to go do with himself. Later he helped set up a house on 8th street where touring bands could crash and anyone who needed a place to stay could find refuge. He worked for the Dynamite Museum, a group of artists who put up art signs all over town, posted free in the yards of anyone who wanted one. In many places there are several on each block, many of these painted by Brian. Another aspect of Amarillo's isolation is that it has become a haven for some really backwards thinking. It was one of the last places in the country to integrate the public schools, and at the two schools with more children of the middle class, a definite pecking order exists. I remember that when I was in high school, a few years before I met Brian, a series of copycat suicides took place with students from Amarillo High and Tascosa, the two schools on the west side of town. There were many people who could never or would never choose to be, part of the accepted norm, and were ostracized. Things changed in large part because of Brian. Not only did he not take the status quo seriously, but was very upfront about it, wearing his spiked blue mohawk without apology to anyone. He would often get beat up, but never waivered in his belief that people should be who they are. The more beatings he got, the tougher his resolve. After a while, jocks would jump him in groups because they knew they couldn't take him alone. He was very visible, and friendly to anyone who would accept his friendship. Because of him, those younger than him were inspired to have the courage to express their true emotions, knowing that there were people who would accept them for who they are, no matter what that might be labeled. Those older than him were inspired by him to stay honest and true to what we believe and not sell out. Aside from the punk shows, the place where much of the socializing of people outside of the mainstream takes place in Amarillo is late at night at 24 hour restaurants. You can most nights find among the regular customers punks, hippies, goths, and any other kind of person (no matter what kind of meaningless label they get classed under). These places tended to serve as a home base, where you could find someone you know or meet someone new, and anyone could join in a conversation. The night Brian was murdered the punks had not come as part of some agreed upon rumble, as his murderers' lawyer would have you believe. Because of an altercation the week before, they knew there might be trouble, but as this was where they usually met up with everyone, they decided that they weren't going to let harassment from some high school jocks dictate what they did with their time. That night I was at my friend Katrina's house, and we considered going to ihop, knowing nothing of the events of the week before. Instead by chance we ended up just hanging out at her house, talking about old friends. As we were parting, she talked about Brian, and how her mother had taught him how to make cookies using cake mix, and how Brian was amused that you "can make cookies without actually making cookies". I told her that yeah, we should hang out with Brian sometime soon. The next morning she called me to tell me that Brian was intentionally run down by a someone in a Cadillac. The attendees at his funeral were a testament to the way he was always reaching out to learn more about people. It was one the most diverse gatherings of that size that I have seen in Amarillo. People of all different religious beliefs, different races, straight and gay, all came together in prayer and remembrance, punk rockers and people in business suits weeping on each other's shoulders. The head of the NAACP talked about how Brian had been fascinated when first learning about the history of Juneteenth, and ended up riding in the Juneteenth parade with him. In turn he went to the mall with Brian, so that Brian could walk through without getting harassed by a security guard. His aunt and uncle read a letter from a family of two elementary age boys who met Brian at a restaurant. The boys had been staring at his mohawk, so he went over and made friends with them. They then told about having to explain to their five year old son what had happened to Brian when the boy came to them with the newspaper to show them that his special friend's picture was on the front page. When I looked around me, on top of the sorrow I felt, I felt joy that because of Brian so much beauty there that people might have been hidden in all of us there had been brought to the light of day, like the nickname he had been give, "Sunshine". It was not until considerably later that I found out much more about what happened. It was almost two years before Dustin Camp, the murderer, was brought to trial. In that time he was allowed to finish high school and receive his diploma. The district attorney turned the case over to an assistant DA. Camp's lawyer, Warren Clark, knew how to play on the prejudices of the jury, and turned the case into a character assasination of Brian, and Brian's friends. Since Brian was not legally on trial, and the assistant DA had never met Brian when he was alive, no character witnesses were called to counter Clark's claim that Brian was "violent" and a "mean drunk", and the jury was swayed by the argument of "defense of a third party". In spite of the testimony of a young woman who was in the car with Camp at the time of the incident reporting Camp exclaiming "I'm a ninja in my Caddy" right after Brian was crushed under Camp's car. Clark passed around the boots and jacket Brian had been wearing when he was killed, and a photo of Brian's hairdo. It became a contest of image vs. substance, and image won. They convicted Camp only of manslaughter, and probated the sentence and the fine. He has not served a day in jail. There are many who would like for this to just go away, who think that "healing" means "forgetting". Those of us who knew Brian will NEVER forget him. We carry him with us, and any time we find ourselves facing an injustice we will think "what would Brian have done?" So with this injustice I am trying to do what Sunshine always does: show the real beauty of who Brian was, and expose evil that hides behind pretty pictures and in places where it thinks the light of day can not reach. Please help to do this by telling people you know about what happened here.
....keep reading please.........
This story is truly a tragic one. Please I urge you to stop the hate. This includes hatred of preps. My best friend is a prep....while I am not. I can not just sit and be silent while more and more punk/goths are showing intolerance for preps. It is the same thing as when a prep kills a punk. It is BOTH wrong. The one thing I urge you to do is to think before you use the word hate. Hate is the root of all evil doings. Do not hate those who hate you....feel sorry for thier ignorance. We need to put an end to this make believe war. We are NOT enemys. We need to come together and fight for justice. Justice for all the stories like Brians... Justice for people who have yet to recieve any. We do not need to promote ignorance and intolerance by making quizzes about how much you hate preps. If you see one of those please direct that person my way. Please once again think before you act.....
Thank you for reading..Please if you want to help me take a stand against intolerance and ignorance, tell your friends and readers to read. More people should know Brians story....PLEASE PLEASE I urge you to rate. Rate for justice....rate for tolerance.....rate for Brian. I think that Brian at the very least deserves to have his story heard....Being on the highest rated list will help to have more people remember Brian and get the message of tolerance out. Thank you again....
Thank you for reading. Please I urge you to stop this make believe war between preps and goths/punks. We are not Goths. We are not Punks. We are not preps. We are not nerds. We are not subcultures. We ARE all people. Please if this made any difference to you, let others know about it.
I did not write the following. A friend of Brians did. This is his story.......
Brian Deneke was one of the kindest and most courageous people I have ever known. I met Brian when he was 14 and I used to hang out with his brother Jason. He was kind of quiet back then, especially compared to how outspoken he became in the years to come. Over the years, each time I came back to Amarillo, I could see not only how Brian grew as an individual, but the effect that he had on the people around him. Amarillo is a city of about 160,000 and there's not much around it for a few hours drive. Most everyone who grows up there complains that there's very little to do. Brian always managed to find something. He was always encouraging the people around him to do something to make their town a better place: publishing zines, putting together punk rock shows- from local kids on guitar and home-made percussion, to talking out of town bands like Naked Aggression into playing free shows in the park while paying for their expenses from the money he saved. The police in Amarillo tended to be very intolerant of anything to do with gatherings of those not in Amarillo's mainstream. When Brian was 16, at the Egg, a punk club that had been set up in a commercially zoned building, with no residencies for several blocks away. Police were trying to force the people there to hear music to leave, claiming there were noise complaints. Brian wouldn't accept our right to assemble being infringed (among the other dangerous things happening that night was poetry reading) so he refused to go and when the officer threatened force, Brian told him what to go do with himself. Later he helped set up a house on 8th street where touring bands could crash and anyone who needed a place to stay could find refuge. He worked for the Dynamite Museum, a group of artists who put up art signs all over town, posted free in the yards of anyone who wanted one. In many places there are several on each block, many of these painted by Brian. Another aspect of Amarillo's isolation is that it has become a haven for some really backwards thinking. It was one of the last places in the country to integrate the public schools, and at the two schools with more children of the middle class, a definite pecking order exists. I remember that when I was in high school, a few years before I met Brian, a series of copycat suicides took place with students from Amarillo High and Tascosa, the two schools on the west side of town. There were many people who could never or would never choose to be, part of the accepted norm, and were ostracized. Things changed in large part because of Brian. Not only did he not take the status quo seriously, but was very upfront about it, wearing his spiked blue mohawk without apology to anyone. He would often get beat up, but never waivered in his belief that people should be who they are. The more beatings he got, the tougher his resolve. After a while, jocks would jump him in groups because they knew they couldn't take him alone. He was very visible, and friendly to anyone who would accept his friendship. Because of him, those younger than him were inspired to have the courage to express their true emotions, knowing that there were people who would accept them for who they are, no matter what that might be labeled. Those older than him were inspired by him to stay honest and true to what we believe and not sell out. Aside from the punk shows, the place where much of the socializing of people outside of the mainstream takes place in Amarillo is late at night at 24 hour restaurants. You can most nights find among the regular customers punks, hippies, goths, and any other kind of person (no matter what kind of meaningless label they get classed under). These places tended to serve as a home base, where you could find someone you know or meet someone new, and anyone could join in a conversation. The night Brian was murdered the punks had not come as part of some agreed upon rumble, as his murderers' lawyer would have you believe. Because of an altercation the week before, they knew there might be trouble, but as this was where they usually met up with everyone, they decided that they weren't going to let harassment from some high school jocks dictate what they did with their time. That night I was at my friend Katrina's house, and we considered going to ihop, knowing nothing of the events of the week before. Instead by chance we ended up just hanging out at her house, talking about old friends. As we were parting, she talked about Brian, and how her mother had taught him how to make cookies using cake mix, and how Brian was amused that you "can make cookies without actually making cookies". I told her that yeah, we should hang out with Brian sometime soon. The next morning she called me to tell me that Brian was intentionally run down by a someone in a Cadillac. The attendees at his funeral were a testament to the way he was always reaching out to learn more about people. It was one the most diverse gatherings of that size that I have seen in Amarillo. People of all different religious beliefs, different races, straight and gay, all came together in prayer and remembrance, punk rockers and people in business suits weeping on each other's shoulders. The head of the NAACP talked about how Brian had been fascinated when first learning about the history of Juneteenth, and ended up riding in the Juneteenth parade with him. In turn he went to the mall with Brian, so that Brian could walk through without getting harassed by a security guard. His aunt and uncle read a letter from a family of two elementary age boys who met Brian at a restaurant. The boys had been staring at his mohawk, so he went over and made friends with them. They then told about having to explain to their five year old son what had happened to Brian when the boy came to them with the newspaper to show them that his special friend's picture was on the front page. When I looked around me, on top of the sorrow I felt, I felt joy that because of Brian so much beauty there that people might have been hidden in all of us there had been brought to the light of day, like the nickname he had been give, "Sunshine". It was not until considerably later that I found out much more about what happened. It was almost two years before Dustin Camp, the murderer, was brought to trial. In that time he was allowed to finish high school and receive his diploma. The district attorney turned the case over to an assistant DA. Camp's lawyer, Warren Clark, knew how to play on the prejudices of the jury, and turned the case into a character assasination of Brian, and Brian's friends. Since Brian was not legally on trial, and the assistant DA had never met Brian when he was alive, no character witnesses were called to counter Clark's claim that Brian was "violent" and a "mean drunk", and the jury was swayed by the argument of "defense of a third party". In spite of the testimony of a young woman who was in the car with Camp at the time of the incident reporting Camp exclaiming "I'm a ninja in my Caddy" right after Brian was crushed under Camp's car. Clark passed around the boots and jacket Brian had been wearing when he was killed, and a photo of Brian's hairdo. It became a contest of image vs. substance, and image won. They convicted Camp only of manslaughter, and probated the sentence and the fine. He has not served a day in jail. There are many who would like for this to just go away, who think that "healing" means "forgetting". Those of us who knew Brian will NEVER forget him. We carry him with us, and any time we find ourselves facing an injustice we will think "what would Brian have done?" So with this injustice I am trying to do what Sunshine always does: show the real beauty of who Brian was, and expose evil that hides behind pretty pictures and in places where it thinks the light of day can not reach. Please help to do this by telling people you know about what happened here.
....keep reading please.........
This story is truly a tragic one. Please I urge you to stop the hate. This includes hatred of preps. My best friend is a prep....while I am not. I can not just sit and be silent while more and more punk/goths are showing intolerance for preps. It is the same thing as when a prep kills a punk. It is BOTH wrong. The one thing I urge you to do is to think before you use the word hate. Hate is the root of all evil doings. Do not hate those who hate you....feel sorry for thier ignorance. We need to put an end to this make believe war. We are NOT enemys. We need to come together and fight for justice. Justice for all the stories like Brians... Justice for people who have yet to recieve any. We do not need to promote ignorance and intolerance by making quizzes about how much you hate preps. If you see one of those please direct that person my way. Please once again think before you act.....
Thank you for reading..Please if you want to help me take a stand against intolerance and ignorance, tell your friends and readers to read. More people should know Brians story....PLEASE PLEASE I urge you to rate. Rate for justice....rate for tolerance.....rate for Brian. I think that Brian at the very least deserves to have his story heard....Being on the highest rated list will help to have more people remember Brian and get the message of tolerance out. Thank you again....
Thank you for reading. Please I urge you to stop this make believe war between preps and goths/punks. We are not Goths. We are not Punks. We are not preps. We are not nerds. We are not subcultures. We ARE all people. Please if this made any difference to you, let others know about it.
