Boasts, beefs and bullets — what started online can end up in the streets, and what happens in the streets can end up online.
Sgt. Dennis Taylor of the Kinston Department of Public Safety’s Gang Unit said police are aware of gang activity on social media platforms, and are monitoring feeds on websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
“We have read of activities that were exchanged over Twitter of something that possibly help with our investigation, or may not,” Taylor said. “But, we have seen some things that go along with some things that we have seen happen on the street.”
A story last week on Wired.com by Ben Austen explored social media use in gang culture in Chicago, where two teens from opposing gangs, who were also rappers, got into online arguments with each other over multiple platforms, including Instagram and YouTube, leading to the murder of one of them while he rode on the back of a friend’s bike.
Subsequent fights and killings occurred among loosely-affiliated gangs across the country.
“Increasingly, disagreements that end in bloodshed have their origins online,” Austen wrote. “The Chicago police department, which now patrols social media along with the streets, estimates that an astonishing 80 percent of all school disturbances result from online exchanges.”
Chicago Crime Lab co-director Harold Pollack said in the story what happens is simple to describe.
“A couple of young guys, plus a disagreement, plus guns equals dead body,” Pollack said. “These are stupid 17-year-old homicides. That’s the extent of it today.”
A quick search for Kinston on YouTube on Friday produced at least three videos of people in brawls while others watched.
Taylor said it’s entirely possible for arguments created by Facebook “drillers” — the term for a gang member who starts fights online — to spill over into real life.
“Quite possibly they could start that through tweeting or Facebooking or other social media they use,” Taylor said. “It’s very possible that’s transpired — not (just) here, but anywhere. You know, they tell everything.”
He continued, “I don’t understand why people talk so much on social media, telling all their business. We find a lot of information out on social media.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 and Wes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @WolfeReports.