"Bumfights" videos prompted
attack on homeless man
A teenager says he watched the "Bumfights" videos hundreds of times before he and four other teens punched, kicked, and stomped a homeles man to death near Holly Hill last year.
Jeffery Spurgeon, 19 and facing 35 years in prison, told CBS News' 60 Minutes that he and the others were imitating one of the beatings on the videos when they killed Michael Roberts.Why did they do it? "I guess for fun," Spurgeon said.
Spurgeon's statement is the first direct link between the bum films and violence against homeless people, said Michael Stoops, executive director for the National Coalition for the Homeless. He believes that if the videos disparaged any other minority group, there would be a national outcry, but because the homeless often already live in a hostile environment there hasn't been much attention paid to crimes against them.
Read (and watch) the 60 Minutes report here. And see previous posts here and here.
posted by Jacqueline Dowd @ 2:51 PM
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