Community Corner
Show Goes On For Stabbing Victim & Hip-Hop Star
Teen's performance airs Wednesday; "vote party" set at Round Table Pizza on Main Street.
The show will go on after all for stabbing victim Cameron Gipson, a 16-year-old junior at Amador Valley High School.
The teen, one of two high schoolers stabbed last month by an acquaintance in downtown Pleasanton, will make his national television debut Wednesday in a hip-hop competition taped live in New York City.
"It's been kind of hard," Cameron said of his recovery. "And I'm limited (physically) to what I can do, which stresses me out a little bit."
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But the rising song-and-dance star, who performs under his stage name Cam Cam, said he is thrilled to be making the trip to the Big Apple and is confident he can win.
Cameron and the other victim, a 17-year-old Village High School student whose name is not being published, were hospitalized and underwent surgery for abdominal injuries suffered in the Sept. 15 incident.
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Arrested in the attack was fellow Village High student Victor Garcia, 16. Garcia is in custody, and faces prosecution in adult court on two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
The second victim returned last week to the hospital for blood-clot complications. He has since been released.
Cameron went back to school Friday, and said he was greeted with "good feedback and positive energy" from classmates and teachers.
According to Cameron's father and manager, Byron Gipson, the slow, painful recovery nearly cost Cameron his booking on the popular "106 & Park" show on the BET network.
"He's going to make it," said Gipson on Monday, as they were boarding the plane to New York. "It does have a happy ending."
On Wednesday's show, Cameron will face off against other hip-hop performers in a live, audience-participation format akin to "American Idol."
The elder Gipson has secured the Round Table Pizza restaurant on Main Street in Pleasanton for a "vote party" that is open to the public and begins at 2:30 p.m.
The show airs at 6 p.m. on BET's Channel 70.
Performers with the most votes from the public win.
Cameron said West Coast fans can vote for him by texting "C" to 79922 from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. -- hours to coincide with the live broadcast in New York.
And, Cameron added, "You can vote nonstop."
