Street gangs use Web sites to promote their agendas
Daniel Borunda El Paso Times Friday, July 28, 2006
El Paso street gang members flash hand signs, boast and threaten rivals in one of more than a dozen personal Web sites related to local gangs and party crews.
The rise of "gangster" sites on the Internet is part of a national trend of personally-created Web pages, such as on the popular MySpace.com, gang investigators said.
"This is just another medium for gangs to express themselves," said Special Agent Andrea Simmons, spokeswoman for the FBI office in El Paso. "Traditionally, it's been (graffiti) on the side of a building. Now they have the ability to communicate their gang information in a much broader way."
Internet gang activity has become so widespread that it's known by the terms "net-banging" or "cyberbanging."
The Web sites are legal.
"The fact they are posting (photos with) gang signs or weapons doesn't make it illegal to post it," Simmons said.
The Web pages are being created nationally by individual gang members, said FBI Special Agent Robert Botsch, a member of the Safe Streets Gang Task Force in El Paso.
"The individual accounts often show guys standing around with their friends flashing gang signs, standing next to their girlfriends in bikinis or holding a weapon," Botsch said.
Sites are also often decorated with gang colors, marijuana leaves and photos with faces masked by bandannas.
There is also plenty of bravado.
One El Paso gang's site listed the crossed-out names of rival gangs that, for added insult, are written in pink.
Another Web site by a Socorro gang member identified only as "Joker" stated his gang, "Can't be denied porque we don't hide nada like the rest of them chavalas (girls) what we can't handle with words, locos we handle with balas (bullets)."
The Web offers gang members "a safe venue to flaunt their stuff," said Rob Gallardo, a gang prevention counselor with the OnRamp Youth Foundation of El Paso. Problems arise when Internet insults lead to real fights locally, he said.
Sgt. Reginald Moton of the El Paso Police Gang Unit said investigators started noticing local gang-related sites about two years ago. There are 478 active gangs in El Paso.
"My only concern is other people looking at them, kids who go into their Web sites. They are kids who are curious about gangs. It's a way of these guys recruiting them," Moton said.
Gallardo said the number of El Paso gang-related Web sites fluctuate as some are taken down -- likely after being discovered by parents, counselors or probation officers.
The El Paso Times, with the assistance of Gallardo, found 17 Web sites for El Paso gangs and party crews that included lists with members' nicknames, photos of teen party crews visiting Juárez nightclubs and blogged gang threats to tag rival turfs.
Gallardo cautioned Internet users should remember that anything posted online can be seen by anyone, including other gangs, police and employers.
The rise of gang activity on the Web is part of a generational change since the Internet boom began a decade ago, said Botsch of the FBI gang task force.
"Overall, the kids nowadays are cyber kids," he said. "They grew up with computers."
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