Before any of that was known, though, the murder of Michael Eugene Thomas was the leadoff single in a story that produced widespread shock and outrage, and became a seminal—and cautionary—tale in the rising notoriety of basketball and street culture in the public consciousness. In many ways, the story was viewed from two distinct, divergent sides: those shocked by the supposed brutality of a hood driven mad with capitalist lust, and those in the shit themselves, who saw a particular perspective on their world thrust, for better or worse, into the national spotlight.