Gangs turn to the Web to boast, threaten and recruit
Gangs are taking to the Internet to recruit new members and expand their territories, police say.
Just five years ago, a Toronto gang calling itself the Asian Assassinz had four members and claimed as its turf two blocks in downtown Chinatown.
Back then, they "tagged the living crap" out of the area, according to a police officer who has tracked them, but not any more because, now, "they have the Internet."
Police say gang members' appearances on Web pages, chat rooms, blogs and social networking sites have allowed the Assassinz to recruit new members and expand their criminal activities far beyond the downtown core.
"It's like advertising, or putting up a billboard" with contact information for would-be members, says Toronto police Const. Scott Mills of CrimeStoppers.
Some call it "netbanging," which "refers to a wide variety of gang-related activity on the Web, including the communication of information among gang members, recruitment activities and provoking hostilities amongst rival gangs through derogatory posts," according to a 2006 RCMP report on youth gangs.
An officer who tracks the Assassinz, and prefers to stay anonymous, patrols the streets building his base of confidential informants and getting to know gang members – when he's not trolling the Internet. He says the two investigative techniques complement one another.
The Internet allows a gang to grow and to reach out to areas where "they aren't known," the front-line officer says.
Four youths charged in a recent home invasion case in Windsor, Ont., for instance, are alleged to be members of the Asian Assassinz and Project Originals, another downtown Toronto gang.
Police were initially stumped as to how the accused knew that the residence, hundreds of kilometres from Toronto, was a suspected gambling operation. Then the Toronto officer searched the Internet and made a link to a southwestern Ontario man who recently pleaded guilty to the crime. The alliance of the Assassinz and P.O. Boys, as they're also known, came to the attention of police after they spotted Web pages containing both logos.
It's part of a larger trend, police say, of street gangs turning to the Internet to do everything from brag about their exploits to intimidate rivals or "snitches," as was disclosed recently in the case of David Latchana, the 23-year-old Malton man shot in the head Nov. 3 after a death threat appeared in a rap song posted on myspace.com.
Peel Region police came under fire from Latchana's family for not responding to the threat in time to save his life. The force says it didn't know about it.
Det. Sgt. Doug Quan of the Toronto Police Service's guns and gangs task force says he's looked at many U.S.-based websites where deeply entrenched gangs such as MS-13 exchange hate-filled messages "back and forth ... it's a daily event for them."
In Canada, "we've not quite devolved to the extent that we're seeing in the U.S., but we're not far behind. The Web is what it is. We're just a click behind," he says.
Flushing out threats on the Web is like finding a "needle in the haystack," says Mills. A frequent lecturer on the topic, he strongly advocates law enforcement develop online strategies that not only combat gang activity but also prevent it from escalating.
It's not always the case that the targets of online threats want police involved, he says. Threats against a youth, who can't be identified, were made online after he testified against one of the Asian Assassinz. Yet he refused protection – police believe he is involved in criminal activity.
Another worrying trend for police are online posts emulating the gangster mentality. After a young man was critically wounded in a downtown Toronto shooting last year, someone started a "stop snitchin" group on Facebook.com after one of the accused gave a statement to police.
"You coulda shut your f----n mouth and you wouldn't be subjected to this," read one posting. "You'd keep your f----n mouth closed if you knew what was good for you," said another. The pages have been taken down.
Mills's laptop is filled with examples of gang bravado – members posing for pictures alongside their aliases and references to their gang affiliation – that he's downloaded from the Internet. He has used such images at bail hearings when he believes the accused ought to stay in custody. "It's been very effective."
"A picture is worth a thousand words," says the other officer. But police also have to be aware about the possibility of the information being deliberately false, misleading or out of date, he adds.
Quan says investigators are also finding references to gang activity hidden or embedded in music videos or the music of aspiring artists.
"The more we can bring awareness to it and be proactive, the less there is on the enforcement end, hopefully," he says.
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