| ] "Let's face it: Gangs already have their own alphabet,] their own language, their own hand signals, so why not
 ] use the Internet?" said Tod Burke, a criminal justice
 ] professor at Radford University in Virginia. "Is this
 ] case unusual? Yes. But what I'm afraid is going to
 ] happen, this is probably just the beginning of it."
 ]
 ] In fact, gangs threatening rivals and issuing challenges
 ] on the Internet has become relatively common, said Jared
 ] Lewis, director of Know Gangs, a Wisconsin-based
 ] organization that educates police and the public about
 ] gangs. It's fueled in part, he said, by chat rooms and
 ] bulletin boards on gangster rap artists' Web sites, he
 ] said.
 If you ever find yourself at a public place where any two large angry groups of people seem to be converging, exit the area. |