Homeless video prompts action by congressman

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Thursday, June 20, 2002 | 10:20 a.m.

A video featuring fights and stunts by homeless people is unfunny, against the law and just plain wrong, a member of Congress says.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., spoke on the floor of Congress this week about "Bumfights: Cause for Concern Vol. 1," and has sent a letter to the Las Vegas FBI office asking what action the agency intends to take.

Blumenauer has also contacted Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who has sought an opinion from Sheriff Jerry Keller and has said she is willing to work with the House Judiciary Committee to seek legal protection for the homeless people who appear in the video, according to a spokesman.

Las Vegas-based producers Ray Laticia and Ty Beeson say the fights and stunts in the video are staged by paid actors. They have sold 300,000 copies since they released the video about two months ago. They say their profits will finance production of their first full-length film.

The video, which took three years to make and was filmed in Las Vegas and San Diego, brings together what one of its producers said are two controversial issues: violence and homelessness.

Though most of the movie shows teens fighting in schoolyards and parks, the scenes that give the video its name and fuel its sales involve homeless people pulling stunts like butting heads against newsstands, jumping into trash bins and wrestling on the sidewalk. A second volume may be produced soon.

"Our design was to attract controversy, because we knew this would sell videos," said the 24-year-old Laticia, a Las Vegas native.

"Really, it is nothing more than a device to poke fun at a taboo stereotype and generate controversy and awareness through media coverage."

Until now the controversy has been limited to the media. Coverage on CNN, Fox News and in the print media locally and abroad has certainly helped sales of the video, which is available only from the producers' website.

But now Blumenauer, who said he was alerted to the video by a constituent, wants something done about what he insists is a criminal and unethical act: homeless people engaging in violent acts on camera.

In their defense the filmmakers say that the homeless were paid for the violence and signed releases to appear in the video.

But Blumenauer and others don't believe them, and say that the issues at play range from finding the boundaries of First Amendment protections to the social implications of negative stereotyping.

"It seems to me if you have people captured on video being assaulted, smoking crack and what have you -- and it is being distributed and sold nationally and internationally -- then there ought to be plenty of opportunity for law enforcement to intervene," Blumenauer said.

"But most fundamentally, it seems there is exploitation of some of the most vulnerable members of society here."

Both the FBI and Metro Police said Wednesday that they have found no wrongdoing in the making of the video.

Metro officers in recent weeks have sought some of the homeless who participated in the video, spokesman Chris Darcy said.

"While we have located some of them, none are willing to cooperate with us," he said. "And so until we have a victim, we can't say a crime has been committed."

Most homeless advocates locally and nationally agree there is an ethical issue with the video. Linda Lera Randle-El, director of Straight from the Streets, a Southern Nevada homeless outreach program, said that while the filmmakers may not have broken any laws, "there is nothing in there that indicates they have any kind of moral conscience."

"These people may well have taken money to appear in the film, but it appears to me that they had serious addiction and mental health problems, and are not necessarily able to make decisions about what they should or shouldn't do."

Ted Hayes, probably the only homeless advocate in the nation who has publicly defended the video, said he thinks the filmmakers are to be applauded for portraying the reality of life in the streets, and for bringing homelessness to the attention of the media.

"They've exposed the real deal, since violence is a fact of life for the homeless," said Hayes, who directs a homeless community in Los Angeles.

But Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said that this is exactly the problem -- the video shows only a slice of life for the homeless, and serves to spread negative stereotypes.

"This just shows the image of homeless men as drunks who spend all their time fighting, and this is just not true for the majority of the homeless population," he said.

Whitehead, who is formerly homeless himself, said that at least 120 homeless people have been killed in hate crimes in the last three years, and fears the video could lead to more violence against the homeless.

"I'm totally in favor of the First Amendment," he said. "But I also believe there's a responsibility to not exploit the harsh conditions of certain populations in our country for personal gain."

Laticia said his company has decided to dedicate 10 percent of profits from sales of the video to the homeless people in it and to charities here and in California.

He said he hopes his future films will "make people think, and spark some intention of change."