A Fluff Piece

So I was just messing around on the Internet, looking for a nice fluff piece to blog about, when I read the following headline:

"2 Men Face Murder Trial in Beating Death of Mentally Ill, Homeless Man."

2 men.  2 MEN.  Two grown-ass men.  Beat a mentally ill, homeless guy.  To death.  To death.  They beat him to death.

The fuck?

If you're curious what their alibi is, the victim in question, Noel Lopez, was beaten to death at a Seattle construction site because he was flirting with some 15-year-old girl.  Which is fine if this 15-year-old girl happened to be a girlfriend of one of his attackers, but I suspect that isn't the case...

"They also plan to present evidence showing that one of the defendants, Steven Bauder, an aspiring wrestler nicknamed 'Enforcer,' was angry with Lopez for challenging him to a wrestling match."

Why do I somehow suspect alcohol was involved?  The article doesn't mention anything about alcohol, but somehow I suspect...

"If Bauder, 25, is convicted, prosecutors will seek to have his sentence enhanced by claiming he committed the murder as a member of a street gang, the Downtown Juggalos."

Seriously?  There's a Juggalo "gang" now?

For those of you who don't know what a Juggalo is, I envy you.  More to the point, though, Juggalos are the self-proclaimed fans of the rock/rap group known as the Insane Clown Posse, a bunch of white guys who dress in black-and-white clown makeup and swear a lot.  (That last sentence fragment, by the way, refers to both ICP and their fans...)

See Exhibit A below...



Featuring either "Insane," or "Clown," or "Posse."  Or maybe it's some Juggalos, seeing as how they're "all up in this bitch," but I don't really care.  If you're wondering why their lips don't match up with the rhyming, that's really not how ICP rolls anyway.  They don't give a shit.  They're like Tupac.  (Except, you know, white.  And somehow still alive...)

First of all, I think we can all agree that beating some mentally-handicapped guy to death is a bad thing to do.  In fact, it's downright horrible, and there's probably a special place in hell reserved for those who would even think of doing such a thing.  This is assuming, of course, that our perps aren't completely fucked-up in the heads themselves.

This brings me to my second point, which is that the Juggalos responsible for this heinous, nauseous, outright disgusting act of violence are not representative of ICP or their fans.  Assuming Bauder and his accomplice with the nice, normal-looking hair were put up to it by a gang, this hypothetical gang and the rest of the Juggalo fanbase are not one and the same.

Yes, Juggalos are some dumb shits, but they are not all like Bauder and Associates, in the same way that not all Germans are like Hitler, and not all black people are like Kanye.  And not all white people are like these guys...



Hmmm...I'm starting to see a certain creative direction here.

Note:  Following the publication of this story, the defendant revealed himself to be judge, jury, and executioner.  "We were trying to make a point, that you don't force yourself on someone and you don't treat people bad. We just wanted him to atone for his sins, but he took the coward's way out and died."

The Brewsky is not amused.