In the years that I have been writing for this blog, I have certainly come across some very strange news items that were related to tattoo. I’ve written about people with misspelled tattoos, people with 3D tattoos, people who’ve dedicated their entire body to tattooing it with portraits of their favourite actor, even people who have been forcibly tattooed against their will. But it wasn’t until today that I came across something of a first – the hit and run of tattoos, if you will…
Stetson Johnson of Oklahoma City is lucky to be alive after he was brutally attacked and tattooed by a group of people he had just met. According to Johnson, he first made contact with a girl over MySpace and had agreed to hang out in person. Johnson ended up at a house where things quickly spiralled out of control. He was beaten, then had his genitals repeatedly tasered by the girl and her friends. They then took Johnson to a nearby lake and struck him over the head with a baseball bat, nearly killing him.
When Johnson awoke two hours later, he discovered that he had also been the victim of unwanted tattooing. On his forehead, “Rapest” was tattooed as well as “I like little boys” across his chest. Johnson’s attackers who have since been apprehended, claim that he had tried to rape the girl whom he had originally met on MySpace. Johnson’s mother says that if this is true, why didn’t the girl simply go to the police rather than beating, tasing and tattooing her son? I tend to agree.
As a result of all this, Johnson and his family are moving and Johnson has had the “Rapest” tattoo on his forehead covered up with a barcode tattoo. I’m sure there is more to this story than what is currently being said, but regardless of what really happened and why, this sort of act of violence is akin to a drive by shooting or a hit and run car accident. Though tattooing someone doesn’t kill them, it certainly does brand them for life and the use of an art form as a weapon or form of punishment is quite frankly, sickening.