As reported below, gang members in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere are taking to social media with great aplomb. What better way to play your local neighborhood knife fight than via twitter? Always wanted to be a member of the bloods or crips, why not stop by our Facebook page?
Once again, we see that criminals–even low level street thugs–are quick to adopt to the latest technology. The developments have not gone unnoticed by the California (USA) State Legislature which recently held meetings in their Assembly entitled: “Gangs 2.0: The Emerging Threat of Cyberthugs.”
According to the California Assembly majority leader Alberto Torrico, gang members both in and out of prison are increasingly making more use of social networking technology. Torrico added that “unfortunately, gangs are using these tools to communicate, recruit, issue threats, traffic narcotics, promote violence and expand their criminal activities.” According to the leader’s official office: “gang members are heavily involved on social networks, with a recent survey finding indicating that 70 percent of gang members say it’s easier to make friends online than in the real world…”
Of course some of these activities are prohibited by existing law. For example, in the summer of 2008, Florida passed a state law (Statute 874-11) called the “Criminal Gang Prevention Act” which went into effect in October of that year. The law, specifically 874.11, provides for a third degree felony for using the Internet to promote criminal gang activity.
The Police Chief in Boca Raton, Florida (US) recently commented that:
“Gangs and other criminal organizations are no different than legitimate businesses in that they have communication and marketing needs. Social media outlets like Twitter provide a cheap and effective vehicle for gangbangers to stay in touch and recruit new members. What is really interesting is that gang leaders have created more loosely structured groups in order to avoid prosecution for running organized criminal enterprises. Social media actually better facilitates gang communication.”
It should come as no surprise that gang members have taken to this technology. 25 years ago on the streets of New York, Miami and Los Angeles only two types of people carried pagers/beepers: physicians and drug dealers. Gang members have readily adapted to the times, but have the police kept pace?
What is your law enforcement agency’s social media policy? Do you have one? Is your local police force incorporating elements of social media into their investigative strategy? Community policing strategy? As the vast majority of these social networks are absolutely free, how might law enforcement leverage social media to provide better public safety and policing services? What do the police have to learn, if anything, from gang bangers on street corners in Harlem about social media?
Gangs in New York talk Twitter: Use tweets to trash-talk rivals, plan fights
by Simone Weichselbaum
Daily NewsNovember 29th, 2009
The city’s street gangs are becoming tweet gangs.
Manhattan‘s young thugs have turned to Twitter, and the cops who track them are fast behind, the Daily News has learned.
It’s old-school crime meets new technology: attacks being plotted – and thwarted – 140 characters at a time.
Groups of teenagers in Harlem use the messaging website Twitter, via their mobile phones, to organize street fights and other shady activities.
One investigator recently warned parents and teens that the bastion of OMG and LOL has been infiltrated by violent crews waging turf wars.
A boy shot in the leg weeks earlier on Lenox Ave. may have been targeted because of a battle the Original Young Gangsters crew started on Twitter.
“It’s horrible,” NYPD Lt. Kevin O’Connor of Manhattan North’s gang intelligence unit told a forum in Harlem.
A basic search of the social-networking site for OYG or Jeff Mob, the gang based in the Jefferson Houses in East Harlem, yields shout-outs and throwdowns.
“I knoe bitches from oyg that would dead mob yah s–t in harlem,” one girl wrote in a series of tweets aimed at drawing out a rival for a fight.
Investigators are monitoring the traffic in hopes of sweeping up gangbangers before the bloodshed – and searching Twitter after attacks for clues.
“It is another tool … just like old phone records,” a police source said. “We can go through them [messages] to track these guys.”
Harlem pastor Vernon Williams, who runs Perfect Peace Ministry Youth Outreach, said his staff uses Twitter, MySpace and instant messaging to keep track of 4,000 at-risk teens.
A week ago, Twitter helped the volunteers stop a street war after they saw the Get Money Boys, based in the St. Nicholas Houses on W. 127 St., exchanging threats with Goodfellas and The New Dons, based just a few blocks north.
“They were threatening to go and hurt two people,” said Williams, 51, who sent staff out to find the tweeters.
An NYPD spokesman and the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined comment on the phenomenon, and Twitter did not respond to e-mails.
Gang members who grew up in the digital age are blasé about their tweeting.
One 15-year-old in the 28 Gunnaz gang said it’s just like any other “form of communication,” except that the world can listen in on the conversation.
That feature can actually fuel disputes. A heated exchange between rivals on the service can turn into a full-fledged beef when others get wind, he said.
A 15-year-old nicknamed Lil V, who belongs to The New Dons, says Twitter is useful for “settin’ up the fights” and making plans.
He seemed aware that the cops or anyone else could follow them – and said the gang takes precautions, using lingo gangsters from an earlier era wouldn’t even understand.
“We got our own page,” Lil V said. “Our page is private.”
