Case Closed | Injustice

How Justice Failed Boy Punk Killed As Guy Walks Free

When Cultures Clashing Leads To Murder.

Ignorance is a blunt weapon forged by fear and brandished by hate. Where panic reigns and knowledge fails, injustice could prevail.

When a feud between a local punk community and a group of their city’s teen jocks spirals into a murder in 1997, it typifies what happens when a cultural attitude softens justice’s reach.

Brian Theodore Deneke was born on March 9, 1978, in Wichita, Kansas. The second child to father Mike, and mother Betty, and the little brother to Jason.

When he was around four, Brian and his family resettled in the southwest city of Amarillo, Texas, in the winter of 1981. At the time, the city had a population of less than 150,000. Having attended Belmar Elementary and Paramount Terrace Elementary, Brian was also a dancer in a Boy Scouts Troupe. He later went to Crockett Middle School, followed by Amarillo High School.

Since Brian was never interested in books or athletics, he began forging his path from an early age. At 13, when Brian started skateboarding to get around his neighborhood, he met with other skateboarders, subsequently being introduced to, and embracing, the punk rock scene. He eventually styled his hair into a blue-dyed spiked mohawk, got tattoos, and wore a black leather jacket and a studded dog collar, reflecting the rebellious attitude of the scene that…