Gangs turning to the Internet to recruit, threaten, experts say
A 15-year-old, who police say is with the Crips, is charged with conveying threats.
By DAVID MACAULAY | 247-7838
October 23, 2008
HAMPTON – The Internet is a rapidly growing area of gang activity, experts say, and Hampton police have now charged a 15-year-old with making gang threats online.
Police say the juvenile, who can’t be identified because of his age, is a member of the Crips street gang.
Investigators say the boy sent a message to a middle school student, which included “watch yo … head cuz im shooting head shots.”
He said he didn’t shoot in the leg because he didn’t aim that low, according to the court document. The message said the 15-year-old had heard his victim was a “Slobk” (a disrespectful name for a member of the Bloods gang).
Police spokeswoman Allison Good said the victim and his parents went to police after a message was sent on the MySpace Web site on Sept. 25.
She said it was the first time that Hampton’s gang unit had taken out a charge of threatening over the computer.
The 15-year-old has also been charged with recruitment of persons for a criminal street gang and for prohibited street gang participation.
“The initiation and participation charges stem from an incident back in 2006 involving the victim. The suspect repeatedly asked the victim to join the gang, and the victim denied,” Good said.
Police say the 15-year-old beat up the victim on one occasion and told him later that he had been “jumped in” to the gang.
“The MySpace message brought everything to light,” Good said.
The victim identified the boy making threats as a member of the Crips, according to the affidavit.
The contents of the 15-year-old’s home on Downes Street, including the contents of his computer and cell phone, have been searched. Recruiting gang members is a felony.
Sabrina Jones is regional manager with the Partnership on Youth Violence Prevention, which includes Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg, Poquoson, and Gloucester, James and York counties.
She said gang members were increasingly turning to the Internet for recruitment and communication, as well as to make threats.
“We are starting to see the Internet as the main thoroughfare of gang activity,” she said. “Gangs are moving away from the graffiti, the colors and the tattoos because we are catching on to some of those things.
“They are now taking their communication to another level because there is more privacy on sites such as MySpace and Facebook.”
Jones highlighted a number of MySpace pages by local gang members, including one by a 34-year-old Blood containing the phrase “Death is certain, life is not.”
“Some people have pages out there. They don’t care. If they are 16 or 34, they use MySpace,” she said.
Virginia’s gang legislation doesn’t specifically cover the Internet.
But Jones said Hampton police were successfully using the law and its appropriate components to bring to justice gang members who made threats.
“We have to read into the law. As the law reads, it is difficult to prosecute,” she said.
But while Hampton police have brought a steady stream of prosecutions under state gang legislation enacted in 2001, other law enforcement agencies have used it sparingly, Jones said.
Newport News Police Department spokeswoman Holly McPherson said no gang-related prosecutions had been brought in the city to date.
Prosecutions for gang members using the Internet also remain rare.
In 2006, Derrell Blaine Jones, 16, of Williamsburg pleaded guilty to making death threats against another teen via MySpace.com. He received a one-year sentence under the terms of his plea agreement, and prosecutors dropped a marijuana possession charge.
But he will serve nine more years in prison for violating probation on a 2006 conviction for a gang-related maiming.
Under state law, it’s illegal for people to be in a gang only if they commit certain offenses.
