This was inspired by a number of people, whose names you may or may not have heard before. I didn't know them or their families. I will never get a chance to know them, either. But what happened to these three people epitomises what is wrong about the world we live in.
I know there are many more people that have died for who they were, whose deaths have not been as well documented. I am not insinuating that any of these three people are worth any more or less than any of these other people. I am just using them as an example. It is a sad thing that there are many more than three victims, but that is the truth.
Brian Deneke
Brian - a punk - died on the night of 12th December 1997. During a fight between the 'punks' and the 'preps' in a mall parking lot in Amarillo, Texas, he was run over by a car driven by 17 year old Dustin Camp.
Brian was a 19 year old brother, son and friend.
James Byrd Jr.
James - a black man - died on June 7th, 1998. Walking home in Jasper, Texas, he accepted a ride from three white men in a truck. Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russell Brewer and John William King ended up beating him, spraying his face with black spray paint, tying him to the truck by his ankles and driving almost three miles, letting him drag along the road. Along the way his body hit a concrete culvert, which caused his right arm and head to be torn off. They left what by then was his remains in front of a church with a mainly black congregation.
James was a 49 year old father, grandfather and friend.
Matthew Shepard
Matthew - a gay man - died on the 12th of October, 1998. He was lured from a campus bar in Laramie, Wyoming, by two men who told him they were gay. Aaron James McKinney and Russell Henderson drove him to a remote area, tied him to a fence, tortured, beat and pistol-whipped him and left him for dead in near freezing temperatures. He was found 18 hours later, and died five days later in hospital.
Matthew was a 21 year old son, brother and friend.
Pic Akai