NYC Gangs Tweet Their Threats
Police, volunteer group use tweets to follow gang members.
By NATALIE RIX
Updated 2:30 PM EDT, Mon, Nov 30, 2009
No longer just for posting funny links and telling the world what you ate for breakfast—Twitter has a new use for New York City gang members.
Gangs are apparently using the social networking site to set up fights and threaten other gang members, reports the New York Daily News.
“I know bitches from oyg that would dead mob yah s—t in harlem,” tweeted a member of East Harlem-based gang OYG, also known as Jeff Mob.
That tweet and others in the same series of attacks are available through a public search of the gang’s name.
The public tweeting by some gang members has helped police and youth outreach volunteers to monitor gang activity. Last week, Perfect Peace Ministry Youth Outreach stopped a fight after reading threatening tweets posted by the Get Money Boys.
Vernon Williams, the Harlem pastor who runs the outreach group said, “They were threatening to go out and hurt two people.”
The group uses instant messaging, Myspace, and Twitter to keep track of 4,000 teens involved in gang activity.
Like the outreach volunteers, police are on to the wealth of gang communication available on Twitter, the Daily News said.
“It is another tool…just like old phone records…We can go through [messages] to track these guys,” a police source said.
Some gang members seem to be aware that their tweets are public. Lil V, a 15-year-old who is part of The New Dons gang, said he keeps his gang’s Twitter page private and uses slang that no one would understand.
First Published: Nov 29, 2009 2:18 PM EDT
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