Black People Are Embracing Twitter And Facebook... Gangbangers Say We're Down With New Media Too!

What, You Think We Don't Know What's Up?

When a gang member was released from a US jail soon after his arrest for selling methamphetamine, friends and associates assumed he had cut a deal with authorities and become a police informant.

They sent a warning on Twitter that went like this: We have a snitch in our midst.

Unbeknownst to them, that tweet and the traffic it generated were being closely followed by investigators, who had been tracking the San Francisco Bay Area gang for months. Officials sat back and watched as others joined the conversation and left behind incriminating information.

Law enforcement officials in the US say gangs are making greater use of Twitter and Facebook, where they sometimes post information that helps agents identify gang associates and learn more about their organisations.

"You find out about people you never would have known about before," said Dean Johnston with the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which helps police investigate gangs. "You build this little tree of people."

In the case involving the suspected informant, tweets alerted investigators to three other gang members who were ultimately arrested on drug charges.

Tech-savvy gangsters have long been at home in chatrooms and on websites like MySpace, but they appear to be gravitating toward Twitter and Facebook, where they can make threats, boast about crimes, share intelligence on rivals and network with people across the country.

"We are seeing a lot more of it," Johnston said. "They will even go out and brag about doing shootings."

In another California case involving a different gang, much of the information gathered by investigators came from members' Facebook accounts. Authorities expect to make arrests in the coming months.

"Once you get into a Facebook group, it's relatively easy," Johnston said. "You have a rolling commentary."

And gang members sometimes turn the tables, asking contacts across their extended networks for help identifying undercover police officers.

It's hard to know exactly how many gang members are turning to Twitter and Facebook. Many police agencies are reluctant to discuss the phenomenon for fear of revealing their investigative techniques.

Capt. Walt Myer, director of the Riverside County regional gang task force, said gang activity often "mirrors general society. When any kind of new technology comes along, they are going to use it."

Ad Feedback Representatives from Twitter and Facebook say they regularly co-operate with police and supply information on account holders when presented with a search warrant. Neither company would discuss specifics.

Gang use of Twitter and Facebook still lags behind use of the much-older MySpace, which remains gang members' online venue of choice.

The Crips, Bloods, Florencia 13, MS-13 and other gangs have long used MySpace to display potentially incriminating photos and videos of people holding guns and making hand gestures. They also post messages about rivals.

Last week, officials in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, announced the arrest of 50 people in a crackdown of a Latino gang they say was engaged in drug sales and hate crimes against black residents. Prosecutors say some of the evidence was pulled from MySpace and YouTube, including rap videos taunting police with violent messages.

While some members are wising up to the police attention such postings can bring, gang information remains publicly viewable online.

Dozens of Facebook accounts are dedicated to the deadly MS-13 gang, with followers from around the globe. At one site, a video displays pictures of dead members of the rival 18th Street gang, and some users have left disrespectful comments.

The toughest part about tracking someone on Twitter is finding the alias or screen name they are posting under. And many tweets are nonsensical or pointless, so cutting through the clutter can be difficult.

"It's tricky," said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy David Anguiano "If you find out what they go by, you are good to go."

Anguiano tracks the online activity of graffiti vandals - the so-called tagging crews that sometimes morph into gangs. They post tweets saying they are heading out to spray paint and sometimes post links to photographs of their work.

Often, they cannot resist bragging about their handiwork, and the electronic trail they leave is frequently used as evidence.

"They talk about it too much," Anguiano said. "You want the fame so you've got to go out there and talk about it. That's when your mouth gets you in trouble."

Source

With Brothers Dropping Like Flies, Is The Price of Policing Black Neighborhoods Too High?

FEELING LUCKY, PUNK?

By Erin Aubry Kaplan

When I moved to Inglewood, California in 2001, I was moving back after a long time away. I grew up just outside the city limits before my family moved into town when I was 15. It was homey and comfortable back then, with roomy houses, lots of backyards to go around and annual Christmas decorating competitions—middle-class and then some.

But there was simultaneously a sense of encroaching danger, a wariness of other, rougher elements that gave Inglewood a dubious reputation that dogs so many black communities...

When I moved back as a homeowner seven years ago, I found myself mulling over not the fond memories but those dubious elements--was moving back a move up? I was hardly proud of those thoughts, but there they were.

In the meantime, I relaxed into a real community life I hadn’t felt in ages. I talked to people across hedges and picket fences. I walked my dogs at night. I joined the block club that met monthly and planned summer parties and fundraisers. But over time I noticed a kind of stoic refusal to address the less idyllic happenings in town that had always been part of Inglewood’s profile, namely gang activity and shootings.

If the police were involved in the controversial shooting of a citizen—as has been happening frequently over the last year, most recently with the shootings of teenager Michael Byoune in May and postal worker Kevin Wicks last month—people had even less to say.

(Postal Worker Kevin Wicks)

The almost determined indifference to the deaths of mostly young black men was disturbing; at one meeting last year, a neighbor reported the shooting death of a 12-year-old boy in the area like he was reading a routine item from the city hall newsletter.

At meetings like this, I fumed—how could we claim to be about neighborhood improvement and safety but ignore the implications of such shootings? Yet I said nothing. The unfortunate truth is, I understood. We were—are-- grappling with a serious identity crisis that’s rooted in both class and race. Inglewood’s block-club denizens are middle-class strivers who applaud the chain stores and eateries that have appeared over the last several years--Marshalls, Ross, Starbucks, Chili’s.

They see all this as civic progress and want to protect it from the thugs and troublemakers. But the strivers and the so-called troublemakers are black. This means when a shooting death happens, black people have to choose who they are and which side they’re on. With a police shooting, whatever its merits, the stakes are higher: they have to decide whether they empathize more with the cause of social justice or material justice, whether the death of another young black man is simply part of the price to be paid for the material justice and well-being that for black folk has been too long in coming.

Of course, the choice between caring about property values and caring about the welfare of the entire community is eminently false. But that’s gotten lost in all the public concern about stamping out gangs has reached a fever pitch this past year in Los Angeles; “possible gang member” has become an almost generic description for black and brown males under the age of 30 who are apprehended by the police.

But the media-driven divide between black suspects and the rest of us—that is, between bad black folk and good—is mostly an illusion. Inglewood is a town that is not so big and the class gap not so wide that people don’t know each other.

Shooting victims live next door to solid citizens; they are somebody’s son or nephew or godchild. I’ve noticed with growing unease that Inglewood police has gotten an extra layer of law enforcement from the California Highway Patrol: On my dog walks I’ve seen more people getting pulled over, spread-eagled or handcuffed than I have in a long time. They are almost always young, black and male.

Recently I overheard a man on my block sternly warn my 14-year-old neighbor, John, to stay away from the streets and to keep his head down. He told John that trouble awaited young black men like him if he wasn’t careful. I wondered: Did he mean trouble from the police or from other young black men not as upstanding as John? Both. And this very upstanding neighbor of mine made it clear that he was speaking from experience.

I appreciated the guy caring enough to speak up and school a young boy, something black people agree we need more of. But the speaking up and coming together can’t stop at the end of anybody’s particular block. If it does, we’re all as imperiled in Inglewood, and in other black neighborhoods across the country, as John surely is now.

Former LA Weekly staff writer and weekly LA Times Columnist Erin Aubry Kaplan is currently a freelance writer and contributing editor to the Times' Opinion section.

Was Jamiel Shaw, A Promising Black High School Football Player Gunned Down While His Mom Was Fighting In Iraq, "Net-Banging?"

It's not surprising that Jamiel Shaw Jr., the Southern California African American high school football star who was tragically gunned down on March 2 by an alleged Latino gang member, was a frequent MySpace user. What teen his age isn't on the ubiquitous social networking site.

Eerily speaking from the grave, however, Shaw's pictures and detailed postings may now be telling a different story. New information is shedding light on a case that has garnered national attention due to the circumstances and racial dynamic of this senseless murder. After the jump, the rest of the story.

Reportedly gunned down less than three blocks away from his home after a date, Jamiel Shaw had a bright future ahead of him. All the ingredients of a success story were right there. Top schools such as Stanford University were trying to recruit him. Last season, the 17-year-old football player earned both "Best Athlete of the Year" and "Most Valuable Player" honors at L.A. High School.

His mother, Army Sergeant Anita May Shaw, 43, was serving her second tour of duty in Iraq when she heard the devastating news about her baby. "They killed him while his mother is in Iraq, fighting, dodging bullets, and she gets a phone call saying her son is on the streets of L.A. dead ... for what?" said Jamiel Shaw, 47, the victim's father.

"He did everything we asked of him," added Shaw. "It's not right. We don't know what to do now. This is who we were living for."

But did his namesake, in fact, do "everything" to prevent his fate?

Police have previously deduced that Hispanic gang members asked Shaw if he belonged to a gang, and shot him even though he answered no. "This is brutal. It's a brutal, senseless act of violence," said LAPD Detective Frank Carillo at the time the incident initially occurred. "The victim was not a gang member, and unfortunately it's not uncommon in L.A. that we have some gang members approaching victims at random just to see if they are or are not [gang members] -- but to shoot him anyway? That's just disgusting."

What the divorced Shaw parents and police may have been completely oblivious to, however, was Jamiel's telling MySpace profile. It was allegedly there that his "other life" was an open book for anyone with a computer and a browser to see.

Butting Heads And Threatening To Expose Gang Affiliation, Prosecutor Taken Off Case

That the accused, Pedro Espinoza, is believed to be in the country illegally only compounds matters, particularly in light of the controversial Special Order 40, which prevents cops from asking the legal status of individuals in an effort to foster cooperation. Click to listen:

Now, many people suspect that Shaw was actually gunned down by the suspect in custody not because of his race, but because of his gangsta lifestyle promoted online without any regard.

The Jamiel Shaw that the media didn't know about proudly claimed membership in his neighborhood street gang Rollin 20's NHB (Neighborhood Bloods) on various MySpace pages. Brazenly posing for pictures, flashing gang signs and reportedly threatening violence against rival gangs including the crips and 18th Street gang (Ironically, the 18th Street gang is the set his alleged killer is from), Jamiel actually depicted dressed in red, which is the color of the Bloods.

According to Project Islamic HOPE' Najee Ali, Shaw was killed wearing several red colored items. The LA based civil rights activist belives this is a case of 'net-banging' in cyberspace, which can can be just as deadly despite the young man not being a hard core gang member, or even showing up in the gang database.

(Random guys posing as Blood gang members)

Was this a hate crime? The issue has become more blurred. Ali believes Jamiel was targeted because his murderer thought he was a rival gang member based on his red belt, wrist bands and Spiderman red backpack.

A coalition of Black and Latino community groups led by Ali is demanding that MySpace immediately, "ban all promotions of gang violence and gang culture by MySpace users, and is asking for community members nationwide to report objectionable comments and pictures that promote gangs."

A rally and press conference is scheduled Monday April 19 in Los Angeles to bring attention to this shocking twist. For more information, contact: Najee Ali (323) 350 1065.

Stay tuned as more details emerge from this incredible story.

Black Folks Are Dying At The Hands Of Latino Gangs And Many Believe This Ain't A Coincidence!

What Can Be Done To Stop The Murder Spree?

Several Los Angeles neighborhoods are experiencing a spate of gang violence.

In the last two weeks, police engaged in a gunbattle with a carload of alleged gang members after a man was shot as he walked with a child; eight people — five of them children — were wounded when a man fired into a crowd near a bus stop; and a 6-year-old boy was shot in the head and critically wounded while riding in a car with his family.

Jamiel Shaw's "18-year plan" for his son was beautifully simple: stay in school, make the grades, stay out of trouble and go off to a college far away from their gang-infested neighborhood.

BREAKING NEWS: GANG MEMBER ARRESTED FOR MURDER OF JAMIEL SHAW

THe plan was working to perfection. Two months past his 17th birthday, Jamiel Shaw Jr. had stayed out of gangs, was a solid student and standout athlete. An ultra-quick running back who led his high school's football team to a Southern League title, he was attracting scholarship attention from Stanford, Rutgers and other schools.

Last Sunday, Jamiel Jr. was shot Sunday night on a sidewalk just a few doors from home, close enough for Jamiel Sr. to hear the gunfire. He ran outside and found his mortally wounded son in a pool of blood.

Jamiel, who was black, was killed by Hispanic gang members who asked him what gang he belonged to, then shot him when he didn't answer, police and witnesses said. No arrests have been made. The 6-year-old boy shot in his family's car also is black. Two men, both Hispanic, have been arrested. Witnesses said the assailants flashed gang signs before opening fire.

Police Chief William Bratton acknowledged the spike in gang crime and said he's responding the same way he did in 2002, the last time there was such violence. He's "putting cops on the dots" — meaning flooding crime hot spots with officers. Los Angeles has recorded 74 homicides this year, a 27 percent increase from the same time last year. Still, Bratton said overall crime is down, as are gang-related homicides — from 28 last year to 22 so far this year.

Bratton described the area where the 6-year-old was shot as "under the influence of a Latino gang" but rejected the idea that the recent violence is racially motivated.

He said hate crimes would be prosecuted if evidence suggests race was a component. But he bristled at a news conference Wednesday when asked if recent shootings were indicative of wider racial problems.

"There are several, unfortunately, among you who every time we have one of these incidents want to make more out of it than it is," Bratton said.

Hispanics constitute about half of Los Angeles' nearly 4 million residents. As the population has surged, Latinos have moved into traditionally black neighborhoods, sometimes creating tension.

Joe Hicks, vice president of Community Advocates Inc. and former executive director of the city's Human Relations Commission, said race is one part of the complex gang problem. "There seems to be some reticence to talk about what is taking place," Hicks said. "There certainly appears to be a racialized component."

"We are so occupied with this black-and-brown crap that nobody is dealing with the gangs," Jamiel's father said. "We don't have no problem with black and brown. What we've got to do is focus our attention on the gangs."

Latino Gang Snuffs Out The Life Of Jamiel Shaw Jr., A Promising 17-Year-Old Black High School Football Player Who's Momma Is Fighting In Iraq

Popular Teens Heartbroken Family Pleads For Killers To Step Up

Jamiel Shaw was gunned down less than three blocks away from his home last Sunday. On his way home from a date, the 17-year-old football player had a bright future ahead of him. Top schools such as Stanford University was just one of the colleges trying to recruit him.

Jamiel Shaw Jr. dedicated his life to the game of football and to his grades. He was a very good student and had all the makings of a success story. The senior at Los Angeles High School was a good student and star football player who had multiple colleges interested in bringing him into their football programs. Last season he earned Best Athlete of the Year honors at LA High School and was deemed their most valuable player.

His mother, Anita May Shaw, is a sergeant in the army serving her second tour of duty in Iraq."They killed him while his mother is in Iraq, fighting, dodging bullets, and she gets a phone call saying her son is on the streets of L.A. dead ... for what?" said Jamiel Shaw, the victim's father.

Authorities say just before 9 p.m., Hispanic gang members walked up to Shaw while he was less than three blocks from his home on 5th Ave. in Arlington Heights, and shot him dead.

"He did everything we asked of him," said Shaw's father. "It's not right. We don't know what to do now. This is who we were living for."

Police are deducing that gang members asked Shaw if he belonged to a gang, and shot him even though he answered no. "This is brutal. It's a brutal, senseless act of violence," said LAPD Detective Frank Carillo. "The victim was not a gang member, and unfortunately it's not uncommon in L.A. that we have some gang members approaching victims at random just to see if they are or are not [gang members] -- but to shoot him anyway? That's just disgusting."
Authorities are asking for the public's help.

If you have information related to this case, you are asked to call the LAPD at (877) LAW-FULL (529-3855). The Latino & African American Leadership Alliance co-chaired by community activists Najee Ali and Christine Chavez will sponsor a candlelight vigil in memory of Jameil Shaw on Tuesday March 4th 2008 at 6pm. The location will be 2136 5th Avenue in Los Angeles, the scene of the murder.

Contact: Najee Ali (323) 350 1065

Latino Gangs In LA Indicted After Systematically "Cleansing" The City Of Black People

Adding To The Tension, State Alleges Racial Cleansing As Motive Behind Gang Assaults And Shootings

The Sheriff's department stats tell the violent story: 80 gang-related shootings in the past three years, including 20 murders. Now, alleged leaders and foot soldiers in the Hispanic gang Florencia 13, also called F13, are being arraigned this week on charges stemming from a pair of federal indictments that describe how the south Los Angeles Latino gang kept a tight grip on its turf by shooting members of a rival gang—and sometimes random black civilians. The "most disturbing aspect" of the federal charges was that "innocent citizens … ended up being shot simply because of the color of their skin," U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien told reporters in announcing the indictments.

No one is sure what started the war between F13 and the black gang known as the East Coast Crips in the Florence-Firestone area of L.A. County. We do know that black areas have become majority-Latino and the two gangs are rivals in the lucrative drug trade. Much of the F13 indictments lay out a conspiracy alleging that gang members controlled drug houses where they sold large amounts of cocaine, crack and methamphetamine. Some say the killings began after the Crips pulled a large drug heist against F13 several years ago.

The federal charges name 61 alleged F13 members in two indictments. The gang-violence charges came in a 53-count RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) indictment against 24 alleged gang leaders, charging them in a conspiracy to sell drugs, possess weapons illegally, and assault and kill black gang members and civilians. In the second indictment prosecutors charged the rest of the men on federal drug-distribution charges. More than 40 of the defendants pleaded not guilty at arraignments Tuesday, according to prosecutors. Michael Khouri, an attorney for Luis Aguilar, 35, says his client left the gang "several years ago" and served recently as a gang negotiator. "Mr. Aguilar will plead not guilty, and he is not guilty," says Khouri. Fifteen of the accused remain fugitives.

The indictments provide a telling snapshot of the changing nature of gangs in south L.A. According to federal prosecutors, F13 has grown into a tightly controlled gang of 2,000 members in 30 cliques led by convicts and parolees who are members of the prison-based Mexican mafia. It's a far cry from the '80s, when the black drug gangs, including the Crips and the Bloods, predominated, mining the crack epidemic with ruthless efficiency. Compared with looser Latino gangs that were seen as turf-conscious fighters, the black gangs were organized and disciplined. "The stereotype was that [the black gangs] were all about the [drug] business," says gang researcher Cheryl Maxson, an associate professor of criminology at University of California, Irvine. With the black gangs, "there was a millionaire in every neighborhood" perched at the top of the crack distribution pyramid, adds gang expert, who edits streetgangs.com.

Now it's the Latino drug gangs that seem tighter and more highly controlled.

Newsweek has more>>>

Dean Gathers Strength, Along With Black Churches Accepting Gay Unions And Mothers Marrying Their Baby's Daddies

Jamaica Smashed by Wrath of Dean

Amistad Ship Sails to Commemorate End of Slave Trade

Black Army Officers Recruited To Stop Gang Violence

Black Churches Split Over Gay Unions

Marry Your Baby Daddy Day to Take Place

Black Athletes Join to Buy Burger King Franchises

Southern Africa Gets Peace Force

US Official Praises South Africa AIDS Plan
A Free-For-All Over Oil Money in Nigeria

Courtesy of Black Report

BLACKS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BEING TARGETED FOR VIOLENCE BY LATINO GANGS

Brown On Black Crime A Major Problem In "All American" City

CANOGA PARK - Since July 2006 there have been 12 shootings targeting Canoga Park Blacks.

Following two recent attacks, police have stepped up warnings to African-Americans to be wary of Canoga Park Alabama.

Some Blacks in the community, as well as educators working with African-American students, said they have felt the wrath of the gang's racist campaign of violence firsthand. But other Blacks paint a more idyllic picture of Canoga Park, one that helped it become the first Los Angeles community to win the All-America honor in the award's 58-year history.

Once a predominately White community, today Canoga Park is about 50 percent Latino, 28 percent white, 15 percent Asian and 4 percent Black, according to a 2005 American Community Survey listed in a California State University, Northridge, report.

Although police can't pinpoint why "CPA" has focused on Blacks, one possibility is street culture emulating prison life, where Black and Latino inmates have repeatedly clashed as they align themselves along racial lines.

"It could be a young guy trying to make his stripes (or) an order from somewhere else or random gang stuff," Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Tom Smart said. "Hopefully, it's a little flare-up and not a continuing trend, especially as the summer heats up."

With the last two attacks on Blacks in and around Lanark Park separated by mere days and feet, police want African-Americans to be on alert for any trouble.

"I feel we have an obligation to let (Black people) know that they could be targeted," Smart said. "I'd like to remind them to be mindful. It's random."

MORE>>>

FOR ONE BLACK GANG IN LOS ANGELES, TODAY IS EIGHT-TRAY DAY AND SOMEBODY COULD END UP DEAD!

Folks are bangin' all around the world!
Knowledge is power family.

SOME FOLKS AREN'T READY TO KICK EMBATTLED ATLANTA FALCON'S BLACK QUARTERBACK MICHAEL VICK TO THE CURB

200 Rally in Georgia to Show Support for Vick
Energy Shortage Hampers Development in Africa
South African Publishers Cancel 'Racist' Comic Book
Democratic Candidates Address Neglected Urban America
Historic Harlem Restaurant Serves Its Last Brunch
Jim Brown Kicks Off a $1.3M Program to Prevent Gang Violence
Sharpton: Slavery Fight Was for Freedom, Not Violence
Fighting Diamond Smuggling in Africa
McDonalds Sacks Twista Over Explicit Lyrics

HAITIAN GANGBANGERS ARE LEAVING DEAD BODIES ALL OVER SOUTH FLORIDA

Black On Black War Among Haitian-Americans May Be Spreading

Jesse Cesar, the one time suspect in the notorious Boynton Beach Mall Christmas Eve homicide, was recently shot and killed in the daytime at a busy east Orange County shopping center.

About 3:40 p.m., Cesar, 22, walked out of All Pro barber shop, and witnesses heard gunshots ring out.

"It sounded like firecrackers," said Mike DeMerchant, 25, who works at an all-terrain vehicle dealership next door.

Workers at the dealership and others found the victim collapsed in front of nearby Johnny's Caribbean Restaurant, shot several times. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Many are concerned that Cesar's death may be the latest in a chain of gang killings.

The spike in homicides in Palm Beach County during the first quarter of the year was gang-related, officials said. Detectives and medical examiners reported at least five gang slayings in the first three months of this year.

Despite a police crackdown on gangs, there were 25 homicides in the first three months of 2007, up from 24 in the same period last year.

Whether it's New York, LA, or the Dirty South, we keep killing ourselves over meaningless ish.

Wake up Black men. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!

SUN SENTINEL

THE WEEK'S BIG NEWS

In Search Of More Drama, Jacksons Get Reality Show [Yahoo]

HBCU'S Reality- They Ain't Bringin Their A-Game [Montg. Ad.]

Master P's Player Son Believes In Wearing Trojans [FOX]

The Wild Antics Of OJ Continue [ABC News]
In Prison Joe, Boys Go Wild Too [ABC News]

Chess Diva-N-Training Has The Right Moves [Final Call]

Move Yo Hands Off Dr. King's Stuff [Wash. Post]

So Why We Moving From San Francisco Family? [AHN]

Gang Sweeps Target Knuckleheads [LA Times]

Knuckleheaded NAACP To Hold Racism Summit [Wash. Post]

THOSE WERE THE GOOD OLD DAYS FOLKS!