Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Gangs Posting on YouTube

Hello kids this is your Uncle P.R. with another important lesson! I know some of you may be considering joining a gang but you're smarter than than that. Besides only dummy's join gangs. Don't believe me? READ THIS!

The beat comes in—a rapid high-hat, laced with a dope-smoking, hypnotic keyboard punch, and then the hook, a song about how Twain Gotti, a 22-year-old rapper from Newport News, Va., will "ride out" on his enemies.

Lesson 1. 
This kid calls himself "Twain Gotti". He adopted the name Gotti from notorious New York gangster John Gotti.
As a native New Yorker who is all too familiar with the exploits of John Gotti and the mafia I can attest to the fact they are unapologetically racist. Only a fool would adapt the name of someone who hates him.

"Gotti" proceeds to spit the lyrics that got him arrested for an unsolved murder in 2007:

"Listen, walk to your boy and I approached him/12 midnight on his traphouse porch and everybody saw when I motherf--kin’ choked him/but nobody saw when I motherfu--kin’ smoked him, roped him, sharpened up the shank, then I poked him".

Lesson 2. 

I guarantee you that your favorite rapper hasn't done most of the things that he's rapped about. I guarantee that your favorite rapper's favorite rapper hasn't done most of the things that he's rapped about. So if you insist on rocking the mic and spitting a hot 16 and you really did commit a crime confessing in a song is beyond stupid. Not only did John Gotti chose not to confess to his crimes, he denied that his gang ever existed.

The song first appeared on MySpace and then popped up on YouTube. It currently has more than 50,000 views.

Antwain “Twain Gotti” Steward would bearrested in 2013 and charged with the double murder of a 16-year-old and his friend, who were shot dead on their porch in 2007 after a detective followed up on a tip about the rapper’s lyrics.

Police are increasingly taking to the Internet highway to cut down, stop and even arrest those who terrorize the streets.

As social media grows, reputed gang members across the country are using the platforms to flaunt guns and wads of cash, threaten rivals, intimidate informants and, in a small number of cases, sell weapons and drugs even plot murder.

Lesson 3.

Everybody, including the police has Internet access, and EVERYBODY is on Facebook.

“What’s taking place online is what’s taking place in the streets,” David Pyrooz, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University who has studied gangs and social media in five big cities.

 “The Internet does more for a gang’s brand or a gang member’s identity than word-of-mouth could ever do. It really gives the gang a wide platform to promote their reputations. They can brag about women, drugs, fighting ... and instead of boasting to five gang members on a street corner, they can go online and it essentially goes viral. It’s like this electronic graffiti wall that never gets deleted."

Lesson 4.

As the social landscape changes, police are now monitoring gang activity online and even using a gang’s social media exploits to issue arrests.

Recently some Chicago "gangstas" too You Tube to create a music video of sorts. The bare-chested young men spouted expletive-laced lyrics and warned rival gangs not to play with them, all the while pointing assault weapons directly at the camera. They flashed gang signs while making it clear to everyone listening that they weren’t afraid to shoot.

Also watching their warnings was the Chicago Police Department, which recognized the two young men as felons who were prohibited from being around guns.

Both were later taken into custody.

Along with traditional investigative techniques, police can even communicate with gang members using aliases while tracking their activities and rivalries, looking for ways to cut short potential flare-ups.

“You can now gangbang from your living room,” says Alex Del Toro, program director at a branch of the Youth Safety and Violence Prevention program, run by the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago. “Who would have thought that 20 years ago? ... Back in the ’80s or ’90s, gang members didn’t want to take their pictures. Now they’re all over YouTube.”

But posting their criminal exploits on YouTube is just a symptom of a bigger issue. Young men who seek to validate and define their manhood by committing atrocious acts of violence also seek the attention that they were deprived of as children. What better way to quench their thirst for attention than to post their eronious "achievements" on social media so that the entire world can see what an absentee father or working mother could not, that they are worthy of being seen and that they are "somebody".

PR

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