On Tuesday night, 1,200 people gathered in Amarillo’s magnificent downtown Globe News Center for the Performing Arts for the premier of Bomb City, a film depicting the 1997 vehicular murder of an Amarillo punk at the hands of a popular “prep.”
The event was sold out, and the crowd consisted of an intriguing mixture of Amarillo’s elites as well as former and current punks, artists, and rabble-rousers.
The screening was hosted by C.J. Ramone, the bass player for the legendary New York punk band The Ramones. The film was met with cheers and high emotion, as the house was packed with friends and family of Brian Deneke, the mohawked boy who was run down in the parking lot of Western Plaza mall on that night 21 years ago.
The death of Deneke has led to tributes by numerous punk bands across the U.S. in the intervening years, and the event has been an emotional touch point for the residents of Amarillo--otherwise known as Bomb City.
Watch the Bomb City trailer here.