Gangs go high tech

A death threat sent via text messaging could mean that local gangs have added a digital-age twist to the old brick-wall graffiti standby.

Investigators with a regional gang task force believe a suspected Bloods member is behind the “Ima sirius just watch ima kil u” message that showed up on a teenage girl’s cell phone last month.

If true, it wouldn’t be the first time gangbangers have turned high-tech to spread a message of drugs, violence and street ideology, experts say.

Jared L. Lewis, director of Wisconsin-based Know Gangs, ticked off several such instances:

* Rival gangs on the U.S.-Mexican border have posted murders on YouTube in a brazen attempt to scare their enemies.

* A Chicago gangster created a hit list of recently paroled rival gang members by downloading their names, pictures and addresses from a department of corrections Web site.

* Locally, someone briefly posted a “Free Shanney” page on MySpace when police first arrested Bloods suspect Rashame “Shanney” Washington in connection with a 2006 Waynesboro gang shooting.

Street gangs nationwide have turned to the virtual world so often since the late 1990s that their appearances have garnered a new term - “Web banging.”

“Gang members threatening or intimidating people on the Internet is a growing trend,” Lewis wrote in an e-mail.

“Much of the Internet activity involving gangs involves younger teens who may be a little less likely to engage in the same type of behavior in real life. But there is a growing number of hardened gang members using the Internet.”

An Augusta County juvenile court already has dealt with a Riverheads High student who posted Web threats against fellow classmates and teachers. A Waynesboro man once was charged with posting pictures of his underage girlfriend on his MySpace page.

“We look at MySpace, too,” Waynesboro Sgt. Kelly Walker said.

It could not be determined if Web-bangers have already filtered into any of the region’s courthouses, however.

What have made headlines are instances where lawmakers in other states decried the digital age of street crime.

A Texas lawmaker hopes to cast a wide net over criminal activity by targeting prepaid cell phones, according to The Associated Press.

Prepaid cell phones are cheap and require no credit to buy, making it a good deal for low-income customers who can’t afford a regular phone plan. The phones also are almost impossible to trace to the buyer, which makes it ideal for drug dealers and others wanting to hide their street crimes from police.

Under state Sen. John Carona’s proposal, a state-issued ID would be needed to buy prepaid cell phones, allowing police to track the owners.

Of course, stories of police eavesdropping on criminal conversations are nothing new. Gang expert George Knox points to the myriad drug prosecutions made possible by federal wiretaps.

“Gangs will use all technology, including anything they can use to sell their drugs with,” said Knox, of the National Gang Crime Research Center.

The local investigation into the text-messaging threat is described in a search warrant that police filed to gain access to a phone company’s customer records.

“Im nt [expletive] playn you u beta pray 2 god 2 help u get ot of dis 1 cuz I dnt [expletive] around,” the text message reads.

Each message was sent anonymously, but with the tag “*5 BLOOD 5*,” leaving investigators to suspect an authentic gang connection. Police say they have a suspect, but have yet to file any charges.

“This is not remotely unusual, especially when they know who the … victim … is,” Knox said. “All you have right there is a threat by a gang.”