reality check

i was shocked and appauled when i saw this piece on “bumfights” on 60 minutes (cbs) last night! it made me extremely angry and sad that we could live in a society where this type of behavior on camera can make lots of money and be imitated as leasure activity. after the article below, i have a video from youtube.com that shows you a clip from one of the bumfights videos. it’s graphic stuff so i warn you that the web-article and the video will turn your stomach — that is unless you’re one of the 300,000 or so people who bought one of these evil videos.

update: youtube.com pulled the video for “terms of use violation” but the original cbs.com 60 minutes segment can be seen at http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2054122n for now. check it out before the link expires.

October 1, 2006

‘Bumfight’ Videos Inspired Joy-Killing
Florida Teen Tells Ed Bradley He Killed Homeless Man ‘For Fun’

Teenagers call it “bum-hunting” and it is a perverse national trend. Across the country, packs of teenage boys are stalking homeless people and attacking them, shooting them with paintball guns, beating them with baseball bats, even dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire. Over the last five years, at least one homeless person has been murdered each month, for no apparent reason.

Homeless advocates say that if any other group was being targeted like this, there’d be a national outcry. But as correspondent Ed Bradley reports, the only thing that seems to spark any outrage is when one of these attacks is captured on video.

Last January in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., two teenagers were caught on video surveillance tape as they beat a homeless man with baseball bats and ran away. The man survived. But that same night, the same kids beat another homeless man, 45-year-old Norris Gaynor, to death.

Seventeen-year-old Thomas Daugherty and 18-year-old Brian Hooks were identified by more than a dozen classmates as the boys on the tape. Still, they pled “not guilty” and are awaiting trial.

Since people living on the streets usually don’t report crime, there are no reliable government statistics. But the National Coalition for the Homeless, using local news reports and other sources, says that since 1999 there have been more than 500 such attacks, resulting in 180 deaths.

One of those killed was 53-year-old Michael Roberts, who was attacked in Holly Hill, Fla. in May 2005. Four teens, aged 14 through 18 confessed to the crime, saying they stumbled across Roberts in the woods where they had gone to smoke pot. Off and on over three hours, they beat him to death.

Jeffrey Spurgeon was the oldest member of the group. “The main thing that I can’t keep out of my head. That I keep thinking about 24/7 is Michael asking for help, and asking us stop, and screaming for help,” Spurgeon says.

Bradley met Spurgeon at his new home, a state prison in Jasper, Fla., where he has been sentenced to spend the next 35 years. He told 60 Minutes his 14-year-old, 220-pound friend, Chris Scamahorn, started the attack.

“Chris woke the guy up and started hittin’ him with a stick. So we all rushed in on him and then I hit him with the stick. And then we all left,” Spurgeon recalls.

Spurgeon says they went back three times and says each time the beatings got worse.

“And the third time when we come back, that’s when Chris had brought a two by four with a nail through it. And hit the guy on top of the head with it,” Spurgeon says.

Why did they do all this?

“I guess for fun,” Spurgeon says.

“These kids were obviously dangerous. And they had no idea why,” says Circuit Court Judge Joseph Will.

He spent weeks looking at the evidence before sentencing Spurgeon and the others to spend most of their adult lives in prison, with no chance for parole.”

It’s not just a mistake. It’s a conscious act that took place over a long period of time that resulted in the brutal death of a helpless harmless man,” Judge Will says.

Why does he think they did it?”

I think they did it because there was someone less powerful than they, to pick on,” the judge says.”

Do you think that it happened because he was homeless?” Bradley asks.”

I think it happened because he was homeless and he was helpless and he was one step down on the violence pecking order from those kids,” Judge Will replies.”

This is the new sport. In many parts of the country, it’s a rite of passage,” says Brian Levin, a criminologist at California State University in San Bernardino, and an expert on hate crimes.

Why would kids start beating up homeless people?”

Most hate offenses are not committed by hard core hate-mongers,” Levin explains. “They’re often associations of young males who looking for some thrill or excitement go out and attack a target that will help validate them. And a target that they think is vulnerable. One that they can get away with. And one that has some kind of negativity associated with it.”

And Levin says no group has more negativity associated with it than the homeless, who are often stereotyped as lazy, stupid and responsible for their situation. He says in many ways, they’re one group it is still “safe” to hate.”

It used to be gays, it used to be African-Americans. But now the vogue target in many ways are the homeless,” says Levin.

“How did this become okay? I mean how did it get to a point where kidsthink we can just go out and beat somebody up, some cases kill them, and that’s alright?” Bradley asks.

“Most recently there have been a series of films, horrible brutal films that dehumanize and degrade the homeless,” says Levin, referring to the Bumfight videos.

Bumfights is a series of popular DVDs in which homeless people perform degrading stunts for which they are paid a few dollars and a lot of alcohol. They also include clips of teenagers fighting. The DVDs cost about $20 and have sold 300,000 copies over the last five years.

The videos star Rufus Hannah, a homeless man dubbed “Rufus the stunt bum,” drinking to excess, falling down, performing dangerous stunts and fighting his best friend Donnie Brennan who is also homeless.

Brennan was even branded for the video.

These days, Hannah is sober, working full-time, and involved in a civil lawsuit to recover some of the money from Bumfights. Brennan, who’s still on the streets, is also suing. Both men claim they were taken advantage of by the film-makers because they were homeless.

Brennan says he got hurt in the making of the videos. “I broke my ankle in half. I broke my leg in two places,” he says.

He says the scenes were not acting but were “down to earth real.”

Asked if they made money from the site, Hannah says, “We didn’t make a damn thing.”

“Five bucks for beer every once in a while,” Brennan adds.”

Sometimes it was only two or three dollars. See, Ryan knew that when we got drunk, he could get us to do anything,” Hannah explains.

“Ryan” is Ryan McPherson, the 23-year-old creator of Bumfights. He sold the rights to the series for $1.5 million shortly after it came out, splitting the money with three partners. But he’s still defending Bumfights in court, and in the media.”

We’re merely exposing something that I don’t think a lot of people know exists. I think it’s interesting. I can’t imagine what would make somebody do the things that Rufus was doing to himself,” McPherson says.”

Because he’s an alcoholic and somebody gave him money. You gave him money, which he used to buy alcohol. Got drunk and he did it,” Bradley remarks.”

It’s not as simple as that,” McPherson replies.

McPherson points out that felony charges for his role in Bumfights were dropped. But he did plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of staging an illegal fight. But Bumfights is worse than you think.

In some scenes, an actor calling himself “the Bumhunter,” along with some of the film-makers, actually attack sleeping homeless people, tying them up and gagging them with duct tape. 60 Minutes showed the scenes to McPherson.

How does he defend that?”It’s a skit,” McPherson says.”

Skit? You’re sneaking up on them while they’re asleep and assaulting them. It doesn’t look like a skit. It doesn’t say, ‘Hey, this is staged. This is acting,’” Bradley remarks.

“Oh, no, no, no. I’m not saying it’s staged. It’s saying that just the way it’s, the way it’s set up,” McPherson says, laughing. “I don’t know. I mean, the bumhunter’s not an easy thing to defend.

“Yet he is defending it. “Well, I’m trying to. It’s just, you know, it’s just hard to make sense of things when they’re just so absurd. I mean it’s just so absurd. I mean this guy’s rolling around in the dirt with homeless people and we’re trying to defend the notion that we’re responsible for the deaths of homeless people,” McPherson tells Bradley.

But police investigations have directly linked Bumfights to some of the attacks against the homeless, which have been steadily increasing ever since the series came out. Professor Levin says the connection between the videos and the violence is hard to ignore.”

They’ve created a whole cultural symbol now. There are now people who are doing their own videos,” Levin explains.

In Calgary, Canada for example, five teens – bored and high on drugs – made a home video of their attack.

When they found a homeless man sleeping in an alley, they took turns kicking him, beating him with a metal pipe and even breaking a bottle on his head. The victim survived, and two of the kids spent a year in jail.

60 Minutes showed the video to Ryan McPherson.”

What do you think of that? You start out with them yelling Bumfights,” Bradley asks.”

It starts off with them on drugs. But, yes, they yell Bumfights. Ya know, there’s nothing in Bumfights that can support that,” McPherson replies.

“As you see it. But they’re the ones who did it. They saw it. In their minds that was the next step for them, the logical thing to do. They saw a connection. Do you see the connection they saw?” Bradley asks.

“Okay. Yes,” McPherson acknowledges.

“You made Bumfights,” Bradley remarks.

“Great. But you, I mean, I’m not, I’m not hopped up on drugs. I’m a kid with a video camera just shootin’ stuff,” McPherson says.

He also doesn’t think he bears any responsibility at all when he sees stories about kids going out and beating up homeless people.

Back in Florida, Jeffrey Spurgeon told 60 Minutes that he and his friends watched Bumfights “hundreds of times.”

“That was their favorite thing to do. Was watch those videos and mock whatever was on it,” he says.

By mock, Spurgeon means copy. And he said they were doing just that the night they killed Michael Roberts.

“We were just trying to mock a show,” he says.

He also tells Bradley they thought it was funny.

How is that fun?”I don’t know just exciting I guess…entertainment?” Spurgeon says.

“What in the world do you do with kids who are sitting in the bushes smoking a little pot one minute, and the next minute beating a man to death? What do you do with kids like that?” Judge Will wonders.

The judge says Bumfights never came up in this case, and he was left searching for other reasons why four kids would beat a homeless man to death.

“The one trend that saw in those kids was that they felt as though they had been bullied and pushed around by everybody in their lives up until that particular moment. And the opportunity just arose,” he says.

“What would you say to kids who might be doing this? Bum-bashing. Bum fighting,” Bradley asks Spurgeon.”

I would ask ‘em what they’re gettin’ out of it. What, what’s so fun about it,” he replies.”

And they would say, ‘But what did you get out of it? You did it,’” Bradley says.”

Yep,” Spurgeon says. “And now I could tell ‘em, ‘Look at me now though. You still have a chance. Look at me.”

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CBSNews.com: 60 Minutes – ‘Bumfight’ Videos Inspired Joy-Killing