NEWS: MySpace: A place for gangs

News/Social Networks/Web Culture/Katherine Rosenberg
Found on: vvdailypress.com

Myspace. com calls itself “a place for friends.” But it’s also a place for gangs, and now, a place for detectives trying to tackle those gangs.

Officials from several San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department stations are perusing the Web site that claims to have over 106 million users, with a reported 230,000 people joining each day. There are various motivations for using MySpace, but at the Victorville station, detectives and members of the Gang Unit use it to track and identify gang members.

“I’ve been working with it for the last six months or so, in order to identify gang members,” said Detective Jeremy Martinez, who heads up the Gang Unit. “I started searching because I learned the Below Under Ground gang had a Web page on there that claimed 37 members in ‘Victimville.’ ”

Martinez has submitted materials obtained via the Web site to the District Attorney’s office as evidence for the prosecution of a gang enhancement for members of BUG currently awaiting trial on a Victorville case from 2005. Among the items submitted were two notebooks full of printouts from myspace.com.