http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tec ... 95137.html

April 14, 2006, 10:11PM

Gangs use Internet to deliver threats
Police in capital use sites, which are legal, to gather intelligence
By ALLISON KLEIN
Washington Post

WASHINGTON - The threat from the D.C.-area gang, Street Thug Criminals, was very clear: "We swore we were going to get the (bleep) that did this and we are. RIP Antonio."

It was delivered the way almost everything seems to be these days: on a Web page.

The Street Thug Criminals have an Internet page, and they used it to warn a rival Langley Park, Md., gang that Antonio's death would be avenged.

Police call it "cyberbanging" — gang members openly bragging about affiliations, skipping school, getting high and battling rival gangs.

Many postings deal with Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a Latino gang that has been spreading quickly in recent years.

There is no way to know for certain whether these cyberbangers are gang members, but it's not likely that they are phonies, said Sgt. George Norris, a Prince George's County, Md., police officer who heads a 16-member regional gang task force.

"If you portray yourself as being MS-13 and you're not, when they find out about it, they kill you just as if you're a rival gang member," Norris said.

Investigators use the sites to track the growing gang problem and to catalog members.

Most cyberbangers on Web pages examined by the Washington Post are teenagers and design their pages to flash in-your-face images of gang flags, hand signs, marijuana, women, stacks of cash and "original gangster" scrolls certifying them as legitimate.

The pages are legal; it is not against the law to be in a gang.

Police said that because they cannot stop the sites, they use them to gather intelligence.

The sites also offer a public glimpse into the lives and personalities of some of the area's gang members: On "Yoshi's" site, his gang affiliation is posted next to pictures of his baby nephew, Christopher. "Krazy Yayo," who represents Sur 13, writes of growing up on the streets and killing without mercy. He ends with "click, click bang, bang."

Norris said he has documented 1,300 members and their associates in Prince George's.