(keyboard clicking) - How can I be like, "Poor me, poor me, poor me"?

I feel like there's always somebody who's had it worse.

Always.

One of the many therapists was like, "You know, you've had a lot of trauma in your life."

I'm like, "Have I?"

- [Voice-Over] Two high school groups known as the jocks and the punks clashed?

The tragic confrontation would end up dividing the entire community.

- You have to be patient because it's not up to me when I heal.

You know, I watched a friend like bleed out here.

There's like 10, 15 people around him just kicking him and hitting him and beating him up.

And he's like in a fetal position on the ground.

I went to therapy, and I had the lady having me write things down.

And then sometimes you're like, "Oh, talking about it helps," so you talk about it all the time, but it doesn't.

It doesn't, it just happens in its own time.

That part that stays with me, with Brian and that whole group, that's gonna be with me forever.

It's just helped shape me into who I am, and it's been very important in my healing to just be patient.

(gentle music) My name's Jacqui Gritzan, and I'm from Amarillo, Texas.

(dog barking) So, Cabinet Crisis, that was Brian's band, (indistinct) of St.

Barbie was the house, one of the houses we hung out at, the band name.

And then they were in magazines.

We're Mexican.

My dad is second generation, my mom's first generation here.

I just blanked.

(chuckling) (family member speaking in Spanish) Like, that was, of course, a big part growing up.

Like, we listen, we had Freddie Fender, the Tejano music.

And like at family reunions, and of course, the ranches, it was all Spanish.

And they spoke Spanish to each other.

They didn't really speak it to me.

They yelled at me in Spanish.

Like, I got that a lot.

So it's just a lot of like identity crisis.

(laughing) My sisters are 11 and 13 years older than me, and so I kinda came around a little bit later.

So, with me, I didn't have as many like cousins around me all the time.

I kind of grew up by myself.

Like, it was me and my, by the time I got older, my sisters were kind of out of the house, so it was me and my mom a lot.

'Cause my dad, like I said, he worked on the ranches, and he worked, he drove trucks, and so he was gone a lot of the time.

So yeah, it was just kind of me there.

I would get board games, and I'd play like the Hungry Hippos.

I would have to do both sides.

Or play Sorry by myself.

I would do all the colors.

(chuckles) You know, and that was the nineties too, so friends were everything.

They were your whole world at that point.

I mean, because you don't have social media, you don't have Facebook, you can't connect with people through video.

We didn't, I mean, we barely had the internet.

You know, you do the chat rooms, the dial-up, but even that was few and far between.

So like your friends were your lifeline to everything.

You know, you could call on the phone, and you're with them all the time.

Like, that's what you wanna do when you're that age.

You don't wanna be home, you wanna be with your friends.

It's like that's your world.

In high school, like you know, I wanted to do all the like, the Spanish club, and the book club, like all the clubs, like, you know, you get into that.

Going into my sophomore year is when I kind of stopped wanting that.

Like, it was so hard to try to join all that stuff, and do all the things, and fit in with all the people, that you just kind of stop.

It's like a turning point, 'cause you like try so hard to be in these, to be this person.

And then when you finally go, (sighs) "I don't even care."

That's when you can kind of be more confident and you come into who you are.

That's kind of when I got into that like alternative, sort of subculture style.

When you first start meeting people in the subcultures, you have, you know, the punk kids with the spikes and the chains, and they all like, you're like, "Oh that's a little scary."

And you have the goth kids who were all black, and their eyeliner.

And then you have kind of the hippie kids.

And you have the, like the raver kids, you know, with the JNCO pants that were huge, and chains.

I think what gravitated me towards them was they were just so accepting.

You didn't have to be a certain way or dress a certain way.

I could wear whatever I was wearing and still go hang out with the punk kids.

Like, they were just, generally speaking, just more welcoming.

Now there were different houses we hung out at.

Like, there was a house that, where the punk kids lived.

So you'd go like to Tyler Street or the St.

Barbie kids on Eighth Street.

So you'd go to different houses 'cause they kind of, they all kind of had their own group.

Everybody knew each other.

Everyone was still friendly.

And it's still Amarillo, you know, so it wasn't really big.

That's one thing I remember is music.

A lot of music, a lot of bands at little venues or at people's houses and garages, just all sorts of bands.

(upbeat music) I mean, I guess it is kind of how they identified themselves, how we identified ourselves.

When shows, like music came, especially 'cause they would do festivals, like they'd have like three or four different bands, they would all go.

And Brian was a central person to that.

He was the person who, when he came back from hitchhiking, that's what he wanted.

He wanted to bring music here, and he wanted to build the scene up, and so he did.

- [Betty] When Brian first got into the punk scene, we were kind of shocked.

It was different.

His dad even tried to cut his hair, (Brian's parent's chuckling) but then it kind of grew on us.

- Brian was just very, (sighs) and I mean he was just warm and happy and nice.

And he would get, I mean, he was a person too, he would get frustrated and upset about things, you know, like any human.

But for the most part, he was just nice.

I mean, there is so much, you know, but Brian was very welcoming.

If he saw somebody that he didn't know, like a new kid at a show, he would go up and introduce himself to the kid, and he would make that person feel included.

And that's just who he was.

I remember even shows where like I was at with friends, and he'd be like, "No, let me walk you to your car."

Like, he would make it a point to just be there for people.

He was one of the leaders.

It's so hard to describe the scene in the group because there's so many different personalities.

Like, you have people who are quiet, and they do poetry, and they don't do anything.

And you have the ones who, you know, scream punk music, or you have the ones who wanna do like spray painting, and you have the ones who don't wanna do any of it.

Like, it's just such a broad, there's so many people, and there's so many different personalities.

(upbeat music) So I think that's kind of part of the other stereotype, people were like, oh, you'd see these kids, and they're, you know, drinking or whatever, and, "Oh, that's how they are," but not all of them are, A lot of them, circumstances, different circumstances, they were not always in school, or you know, they had harder home life, so it wasn't always part of being in class.

You didn't really see 'em in school, if we're like specific for that.

Back then, like you couldn't have colored hair.

You have colored hair, you get sent to North Heights, which is the alternative school.

And so I knew a bunch of kids who got sent to alternative school, because of, they wanted spikes in their hair, or you know, they wanted purple hair, or just little things like that that they would kind of get sent off for.

And they're smart kids, you know.

And so a lot of times some kids would even just go to graduate early because they didn't wanna be in the system anymore.

My mom, and she'll tell you now too, like she preferred obviously my friends who looked nicer.

The friends who came over with spikes, or you know, that sort of thing, they weren't always that welcomed.

I think her image was skewed.

I think in her eyes, these friends were what brought about my new, "Okay, I'm gonna skip school," that sort of thing.

I think all that stuff would happen anyway, and it was that change in me that found the friends, you know, if that makes sense.

I would go to school sometimes, or sometimes I wouldn't.

But this particular time, we decided not to go to school, and we were sitting there hanging out.

Because we had to go back to pick the friends up for lunch, you know, 'cause I had the car, and I'm sitting there and then my mom pulls up, and my friends were like, "Jacqui, your mom's there."

I'm like, "What?"

I looked over and my mom's just mad, and she's like, "Get in there right now!"

And "Okay, okay," so I go, and I'm inside, and that's when she pulls out, the teacher shows all the notes.

Like, I had friends who had written like, you know, I was going to the doctor, or I was not feeling well and, you know, signed her name.

And they had all the notes, and I mean I was in so much trouble.

I was in so much trouble.

Probably most of my life, like when dad was gone, my mom would pick me up from school and then take me home, and I would get home like 3:30.

And she'd go to work at the phone company, her shift was 4:15 to 10:15.

She had a break right in the middle.

So as long as I was there for that break, and as long as I answered that phone, called and checked in and hung up, and I could be gone again until she got home.

There were places that we would hang out like Roasters, the coffee shop, or places like that where everyone was just used to you.

But you go to the mall, and you do get a lot of people who are like looking at you weird or like, oh, a shock.

There was always a shock.

- [Audience] Oh!

- [Ricki] Okay but wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You say no, but if you saw her walking down the street, you wouldn't point fingers and make fun, or- - Most of the violence that I knew of, I was never really there, but I do remember seeing black eyes, or the stories, or, "Oh, I got jumped."

It was, well, scary and (sighs) not even scary, it was more like sadness and shock.

- [Amy] The punk click really was not treated well.

They were bullied.

They would get picked on, they would get spit on.

- In high school, like I just remember, (sighs) I'm having a hard time articulating it, but kids who were, you know, I went to my first suicide funeral when I was 17, you know.

You know these people, you know your friends, and you think, "Wow, this guy Brian, you know, he's really nice, and then somebody else is, just jumped on you and attacked you because of what you look like."

It was just, it was sad.

You see the black eyes and the bruises and the scrapes, and you hear the stories.

At that point, I'd been hanging out with Brian a lot.

You know, he'd call me every night, and we would talk on the phone.

We would hang out a lot.

But then when my friend started dating his brother, we hung out a lot.

So we would spend a lot of time together.

You know, he would call from his parents' house, or pay phones, 'cause he didn't have a phone, so I'd have to wait for him to call me.

- [Producer] What do you think that y'all meant to each other?

- I don't know.

I really don't.

I mean, I hate to say anything now, 'cause you don't know what other people were, you know, and I don't like to overstep, but we were, so I just say that we were really close.

I don't know, the whole day's confusion, like going from that to the fight to the killing.

And then the confusing part is like, why, like why did that happen?

It didn't have to happen.

- [Voice-Over] On the evening of December 12th, the IHOP parking lot was packed with teenagers.

Among them was Dustin Camp and his 1983 Cadillac.

The punks numbered five boys and four girls.

Eyewitnesses estimate the number of jocks at anywhere between 20 and 50.

- That night we had all gone out.

Everyone was there.

I mean, there was a bunch of people there hanging out.

And we were just hanging out, like everyone was having a good time.

Something happened at IHOP the week before.

So that night they were talking about it.

'Cause some of the kids that went to Tascosa were like, "Oh hey, they said they're gonna be there."

And in my perspective, it was almost like, (sighs) "They can't stop us from going to IHOP."

Like, "We're gonna go to IHOP, we wanna go to IHOP."

Like, no, like, not necessarily like, "Yeah, we're gonna go fight."

It was more like, "Yeah, let's go show them that they can't kick us out of IHOP."

(chuckles) Like even that now sounds so silly to me.

Like, it's probably the same thing as everything else.

It starts like, "Oh, let's just show up," and then it just escalates, and then no one can stop it.

When we walked into IHOP, the manager was like, "Hey, your friend's across the street."

'Cause somehow like you lose track, there's so many people.

Everyone's like, "Oh, let's," you know, "Oh, Brian's getting beat up."

You know, the manager's like, "Your friend's getting beat up."

Okay, so there was maybe five of us that went across the street.

And I remember Brian, he was on the ground, and people were around him in a circle kicking.

And then honestly, like I just remember everyone's like pulling people off.

I mean, me too, I guess, you lose track, like it really is a blur.

- [Voice-Over] As the two sides fought, Dustin Camp weaved his car through the crowd, first swiping punker Chris Olds, - [Jacqui] After he hit the first guy, Rob started yelling, "Let's go, let's get out of here."

- [Voice-Over] But Dustin camp did not leave the parking lot, instead he made a fateful decision.

He spun his car around and drove straight for Brian Deneke.

- And then the next real clear memory I have is Brian's on the ground by the curb and the ambulance came, and people are crying and screaming, and I'm just like rubbing his leg, like, 'cause he's cold, and the ambulance comes, and they're just stand, they just look at him.

And that's my clear, that's clear.

'Cause I was like, "Why aren't you helping him?"

And the guy just shook his head, like they're not helping him, like he's gone.

Like, even at the police station, that's kind of when the group was just like, group hug, and you just like, you're with these people, and it just became, you're kind of protected, I guess.

You know, 'cause you have this group that's with you, and you're going through the same thing, and you're in this.

And I just, I remember like with my mom, 'cause I remember like my mom was really upset, and I think about my kids, how I would feel with them at this point, but I just remember kind of like lashing out, like, "You didn't even like my friends, I'm gonna be with my friends."

Like, I mean, she even went to his funeral.

I didn't sit with her, I was with my group, you know, and she went, and she was just there being supportive.

And like that was jarring and kind of a breakdown moment.

Needless, I went to therapy a lot, and that's kind of, at the beginning, my mom was very much like, "No, you need to," 'cause from the beginning I didn't remember a lot of it, and they're like, "No, you need to, let's go try to help you.

You need to probably face this, and remember this, and get through this."

And I went a lot, but I don't, I never like cracked that door open.

And I probably didn't really push for it to be open either, 'cause I kind of have a feeling like maybe if your mind is blocking something, then maybe it's for the best.

There's local news.

That was a big deal.

But I mean, within the next year Dustin Camp was going back to school, like there wasn't, it was like nothing.

And so I remember a lot of us were like letter writing or reaching out to people and trying to say, "Hey look, this is what happened.

You know, our friend died.

They're not doing anything about it."

And what happened was that Oprah was in town.

- [Voice-Over] Oprah Winfrey is in Texas facing a federal lawsuit claiming defamation of the American beef.

And Amarillo cattle feeder sued her and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman after a show on which Lyman suggested American beef could spread mad cow disease.

- And so there were people covering that.

And Dustin was already on trial, like we were in the middle of court when the first story came out with, I think it was "Texas Monthly."

He was sentenced, and that's when all the attention came.

- [Voice-Over] Camp's punishment for killing a punker would only be probation.

Dustin Camp has been sentenced to probation for the murder of your son.

He won't spend a night in jail.

- He didn't spend a night.

- He never did.

- I don't know if he even spent an hour in jail, period.

- And so then after that, that's when it was like MTV and "Dateline," and "Elizabeth Vargas" is here, and all the people, and all this stuff.

And a little overwhelming, but it was well after he'd already been gone.

And so you kind of, like us as a group, me, I can't really speak for anyone else, but you know, you're in this like group, and then you get through it, you know, and then the trial happens, and it's there.

And then all this news happens again, so you're kind of back in this.

They kind of take you back to this spot again, you know.

(melancholic music) It's easy to keep the things inside and not think about it, like, not gonna, like this happened, but I'm not gonna deal with it.

When the court came about, yeah, you had to rehash it, and you had to go through it again.

And they were all asking questions, the questions.

At that point, I'd had my son, my oldest son.

And so I didn't want to go to court, because after, like after Brian died, there was also the people who were throwing bottles at the Tyler street house, or throwing radios, or running women off the road, you know, who they thought were punks.

Like, it was very, it got kind of scary.

We were kinda like, "You already killed our friend.

Like, what else do you want?

What else do you want?"

I was subpoenaed, so I could only go in through the closing arguments.

But I asked if I could not, if they didn't have to use my testimony, if they could not, because I had my son.

And like things got so scary towards, when that happened.

I just didn't want to be driving down the road with my kid and, you know, have someone run me off.

But I think for a while there it was the same story, the same things.

And it gets to a point where, like Jason, he wouldn't do interviews anymore, 'cause you know, you get to a point where you're like, (sighs) "Man, like trying to get through this," you know.

He died the week of like semester tests, and needless to say, I didn't do very well on any of 'em.

And I think at that point, like my parents were just trying to get me through it.

I did get my GED.

I don't think I was really healed.

And so I think I was just trying to like put bandaids on things, or like make ends meet, if that makes sense.

And even, you know, my son's dad at the time, I was like, "Hey, I'm out.

Like, I'm not gonna be here.

Like, I will come back and visit, but I'm not gonna live here.

I wanna go to Vancouver or San Francisco or New York.

I wanna go somewhere.

I don't wanna be here."

I think I'd been on a plane like twice, maybe three times.

It's not something I thought of.

But my older sisters were like, "Hey, Southwest is hiring, you should apply.

It's benefits.

It's, you know, a good job.

You should do it."

Especially 'cause I didn't really know what else I wanted to do.

All of a sudden, have the job, and I'm in San Francisco, or all over the place, you know?

And I was having a lot of fun.

I mean, I was in my twenties, and I'm traveling around, you know, and having a good time.

And so it was a fun, fun environment for somebody in their twenties.

But home life was just a little rough.

I was a single mom, and so my son was having to stay with my parents a lot.

And it's just, and he was little, he was six.

And in fact, I always told my oldest, I'm like, "Luke, god, I'm so sorry, like, we grew up together."

Like, especially not even just being a young mom, like I was dealing with some crap.

You know, I was dealing with a lot of stuff, and emotional stuff.

I remember it clear, it was a Christmas, and I had just spent the whole day at the airport, standby.

And I went home to Amarillo, like I flew, 'cause I was in Dallas.

So I flew to Amarillo, got to spend a few hours, and I had to fly back to Dallas, and I had to get a hotel room.

And I just remember, like, "I don't wanna do this."

Like, "I am done."

And so that was it.

And I don't think it was necessarily a rock bottom, but I think it was like, I just wasn't happy, you know?

And I feel like I tried so hard to, I just wanted to be this person that people, you know, like even at his school, like I dressed differently.

You know, I dressed not really how I wanted to, more preppy, I guess, because I wanted to put a good impression.

I want people to think well of me.

'Cause you hear so many bad things about yourself all the time, you start to feel 'em.

And I think I had just been living that for so long, like trying to be this person that I'm, I just really wasn't happy with.

And you know, I was still struggling to pay my bills.

And you know, I didn't know what I was doing, and I did the best I could, but without my parents, man, I don't know.

Like, I'm very grateful for them, because they helped so much with Luke.

Like, I could not have done it.

They were my other partner, you know, like I couldn't have done it without them.

Being a parent just changes you, you know, it changes your whole perspective.

Like, I don't even just think about Brian, or my loss, like I'm a parent now, I think about like, "What would I do?

How would I feel?"

And it just makes you, I just can't, I can't imagine it, you know?

So that kind of is what every now and then it will hit.

Like, I've told my mom all the time, like, "God, man, I'm sorry I was a brat."

Like, "Ooh, I'm sorry I ran away," one time, just for a few days.

But I'm like, "I'm sorry I did that."

And she'll tell me now.

She's like, "I tell my friends all the time, like, you know, Jacqui may have caused me the most trouble, but she's the only one who's ever like said sorry and thank you."

'Cause I do, I appreciate them.

That has helped me heal myself.

While I enjoyed my life, you know, I had Luke and I was home every day, and I was really involved in my church, and I was directing the youth group, and I was doing all this stuff, it just, I still felt like trapped in a sense.

(plane soaring) - [Voice-Over] American Airlines announced in October it was hiring 1,500 new flight attendants, 20,000 applicants responded.

So many Americans stopped taking resumes after eight days.

- I applied at American, thought I'd try it again.

My son was like, "Yeah," you know, he liked flying, he liked flying for free.

So go on and try it again.

So about 10, almost 11 years ago, I moved to the DFW area.

But really I think it was probably a way just to kind of get away from where I was, you know, and try to maybe get to someplace new.

Like, healing health, whoever I was going to be, like, I just needed a change.

I met my husband there and have more kids now.

And the past 10 years in this life has just been really healing, 'cause it is more, it's just calm, and it's been very important in my healing to just be patient.

When Jordan and I first start hanging out and, you know, people out here don't always know my story and my association with all that, I'm like, "Oh, these people are wanting to talk about this movie."

- A movie based on the 1997 events between two high school groups that rocked Amarillo and sparked a nationwide conversation about tolerance in the justice system is making its much anticipated premiere.

- If Mike and Betty are okay with it, then we're okay with it.

This their child, they dealt, we all dealt with the loss, but they dealt with the loss the most.

And Jason, you know, that's their family.

Most of the friends who have seen it, not everyone's dealt with it.

You know, I think it brought a lot of memories back, because it was not only like, "Oh, we did all these interviews, you know, 20 years ago."

This is like something now and it's fresh, and it's bringing it back up, and not everyone dealt with it.

And then, you know, it gets personal, 'cause it's kind of like, it's our story too, in a sense.

My son, my oldest, you know, he's 26, he has a piercing and, you know, when he was at Amarillo High, like, "What would I do?

How would I feel?"

And it just makes you, I just can't, I can't imagine it, you know?

So that kind of is what every now and then it will hit.

I feel like I have healed a lot in this past decade, or even two decades, but that part that stays with me, with Brian and that whole group, that's gonna be with me forever, it's just helped shape me into who I am as far as empathy.

Like, you don't know what other people are going through.

And just because somebody looks a certain way, or talks a certain way, or likes a certain thing, that doesn't mean you should judge them, 'cause everybody's different.

I mean, even me, like now people who know me now probably don't think of me like running around with a bunch of punk kids, or whoever, like skipping school, or you know, even at work.

Like, I see kids sometimes like on the planes, and they have like their piercings, and I'm be like, "Hey, I know that band," but it's, you know, you just don't picture it, so you have to be more empathetic to everybody.

Especially in this world, like the climate we're in now, there's so much hatred.

It is just, I teach my, I tell my kids all the time, like, you just need to love people, like love each other and be nice to people.

I can be kind to everybody, but it's being kind to myself that sometimes gets in the way.

But you know, my family, my sisters and my nieces and my mom, and we have a group text, we talk every day, and I still don't speak Spanish.

(chuckling) I have a peaceful life.

- Well, that is this episode.

Hope you'll join us next week.

(gentle upbeat music)