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Flash Mob Gang Warfare

TexasDex writes "You've all heard of flash mobs and Flash Mob Computing. Now here's a new twist on the flash mob phenomenon: Almost 3 dozen people were arrested for a March 3 street fight. 'What makes this case unusual is how the clash was arranged: via a profanity-laced Internet chat room.' Apparently two Dallas gangs, after trading insults in a chat room, traded their keyboards for fists and baseball bats and arranged a time to meet and duke it out in real life. The gang members were later identified and arrested with the aid of a digital video tape of the brawl. According to one officer, 'Some of them actually signed in with their true names, so that helped us identify people.'"

41 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. Scoop! by balthan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gotta love how slashdot stays on the forefront of up-to-the-minute journalism.

    1. Re:Scoop! by Glonoinha · · Score: 4, Funny

      About like a bunch of computer nerds to bring baseball bats to a gunfight.

      Actually none of them sound like rocket scientists - but given that it happened in Texas I am shocked, awed, and dismayed at the complete lack of firearms in this disagreement. You would think that with upwards of 40 or so hooligans ... somebody would have remembered that rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, and a few H&K MP5A3s full of 9mm Hydroshok ammo and laser designators beats a bunch of punks with baseball bats.

      Damn kids today ...

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
  2. With or without computers.... by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 4, Insightful
    criminals are always stupid.

    (This is why cops can catch them).

  3. yeah by twenty-exty-six · · Score: 3, Funny

    I would have used the keyboard instead of a baseball bat. Would have been sooo much cooler with keys flying everywhere with every strike.

  4. You know what they sing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way, from your first blogging breath, to your last journaled day.

  5. Should have let them kill eachother by aardwolf204 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Should have let them kill eachother, would have been Darwin at its finest

    --
    Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
  6. Why do I think this all started with.... by Bryan+Gividen · · Score: 5, Funny

    *gang 1 slaps around gang 2 with a bit of large trout

  7. Communications medium was used for communicating? by RollingThunder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Say it ain't so!!!

    This is not newsworthy. People traded insults and got into a fight. So it happened over the internet - so what?

    Communications can be good or bad. The internet isn't going to prevent some punk from talking shit about some other punk.

  8. n3wzF1a5h by WTFmonkey · · Score: 3, Funny
    g4ng m3mbrzzz kkkan uz3 A0l iM 2 !!!!one!11

    n3wz @ 11!!!

  9. oh great by poofyhairguy82 · · Score: 4, Funny

    of great... now our gangs are on the internet. I wonder how much longer till our crime is outsourced to india like our jobs are.

    1. Re:oh great by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, our organized crime is already outsourced to Italy...

  10. I'd love to read that transcript by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nigga4Life82: fuk you mama
    FreshJackMan: u smoke dicks
    FreshJackMan: an you mama a ho
    Nigga4Life82: fuck yo mama ho
    DJMonkeyAss: sup bitches
    FreshJackMan: niga4life needs
    DJMonkeyAss: indahouse
    FreshJackMan: a cap in his ass
    Tawneesha79: sup dopeman
    FreshJackMan: GLOCK GLOCK LoL ;-)
    Nigga4Life82: gona buts a cap in jack ass
    Nigga4Life82: punk ass bitch anyway

    (... six hours later ...)

    Nigga4Life82: make you move motherfuker
    FreshJackMan: kick yo bitch ass bitch
    FreshJackMan: fuck your mama bitch ass ho

    (... two hours later... the fight begins)

    1. Re:I'd love to read that transcript by severed · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hell, that sounds like just about every game of WarCraft III that I have on battlenet...

      --

      HaXXXor.com - Naked Chicks Teach You How To Ha

  11. Excuses, excuses. by RuneB · · Score: 5, Funny
    "For the most part, it's nothing but cursing on it. ... Some of them actually signed in with their true names, so that helped us identify people."

    I wonder how many of them will claim that it wasn't really them becasue of a worm or virus or someone else using their password.

    --
    dtach - A tiny program that emulates the detach feat
  12. West Side Story by tim_mathews · · Score: 4, Funny

    West Side Story meets IRC? You are now chatting in #gangfights, the topic is "Jets vs Sharks set to a wonderful musical score by Leonard Bernstein"

  13. Slashdot effect street fight!!! by identity0 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Quick, everyone! Let's have a Slashdot-effect mob street fight!

    Rusty from Kuro5hin says this - "Hey Taco, j00 sux0r! CowboyNeal is a loser AOLer! Slashcode is worse than VB code! Hemos is a homo! If j00 l05ers think otherwise, show up at the corner of 2nd and Main at 3pm with 'yo posse, and we'll settle this with a fight between us K5-krew and the ./ Horde. J00 g01n' D0wn!!"

    I'm putting money on the K5er's. Slashdotters aren't exactly tough.

    1. Re:Slashdot effect street fight!!! by nomadic · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm putting money on the K5er's. Slashdotters aren't exactly tough.

      I don't think either side would acquit themselves well. Though the cops may have trouble; they'd be laughing too hard to effectively make the arrests.

  14. Were they called the Sharks and the Jets? by craXORjack · · Score: 3, Funny

    They should have told the police they were just practicing for a performance of West Side Story and then started singing Tonight

    --
    Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
  15. Fights on IRC are fun to watch by British · · Score: 4, Funny

    Guy 1: I'm gonna kick your ass!
    Guy 2: Bring it on!
    Guy 1: Fine! Where do you wanna meet?
    Guy 2: I'll go to your place just to kick..your..ass. Where do you live?
    Guy 1: 1328 Farnsworth street in Edina
    Guy 2: Oh I'm so there. Wait, I'm in Rosevile
    Guy 1: Okay, you can take I-494 westbound, then take hwy 100 northbound.
    Guy 2: Can't do that, 494 near me is closed and there's no detour
    Guy 1: Okay, how about County road B? ....and so on, and so on...

  16. Gang warfare, geek style by AnonymousTravis · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hope I get an invite to the next one. I'm bringing my vorpal sword of slaying +3

  17. Why this fails... by AvantLegion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The high IQ criminals are not caught, not identified as criminals, and are not counted in the IQ scores for criminals.

    1. Re:Why this fails... by Pyrion · · Score: 5, Funny

      Instead, they're elected into Congress.

      --
      "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
    2. Re:Why this fails... by ziggy_zero · · Score: 4, Funny

      You think they have high IQs?

      --
      I belong to the ______ generation.
  18. Pun by gremlins · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they used molotov cocktail's it would have been a real flame war. I know horrible pun but someone had to say it

    --
    just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
  19. As the man said... by Chris+Tucker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..."Any fool can use a computer. Many do."
    Ted Nelson

    --
    Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
  20. Online gangs by Fullmetal+Edward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Haven't they heard of Quake? what kinda (in)sane person even leaves the house to have a fight these days, we've got good enough connections to act like real men and hit each other with crowbars without having to move at all.

    --
    --- [Insert intresting Sig here]
    1. Re:Online gangs by Glonoinha · · Score: 3, Funny

      Quake? QUAKE? Why I oughta bust a cap in yo ass for suggesting such an old wimp ass program. In fact if I ever catch you in CounterStrike I'm gonna ... do exactly that. I will AWP you so hard you will have my own team-mates complaining that I'm an AWP-camping aim-bot whore.

      See, that's how real nerds 'throw down', cept I have hence moved on to UT2004. And don't think I won't use that Redeemer, cause I will - and that's when things get real ugly.

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
  21. Re:Communications medium was used for communicatin by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly, and how does this have ANYTHING to do with flash mobs? They were already established groups (gangs). The same thing could have happened because of a shouting match in the streets, a conference call, or any other form of group communication. Just because the cause of the fight happened to be on the internet doesn't make it special.

  22. Especially with OSX! by Ieshan · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, especially if they were on IRC using OSX.

    (rimshot)

  23. WRONG by anything901 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This was NOT a flash mob. Why on Earth would you call it that? It was a pre-arranged fight, as almost all gang fights are.
    A bunch of kids argued in a chat room and then they fought.
    This story is among the worst I've ever seen here.

  24. Rich! by twitter · · Score: 4, Funny
    ... experts agreed. "Let's face it: Gangs already have their own alphabet, their own language, their own hand signals, so why not use the Internet?"

    I'm waiting for the gang hand sign RFC.

    Parents, not police, must take ultimate responsibility, said Lewis, a former police officer in Modesto, Calif. "I'm just wondering why the parents aren't monitoring what's going on back and forth on the Internet," he said.

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch house:

    A Roadside Oiler, filled with pride, watches his son typing away. "My son is a fucking genouis with that thing. He's always working at it. Trojans, DDoS, I got no idea what it is so it must be good."

    Sonny gets out of his chair, picks up a baseball bat and heads for the door.

    Oiler: Where you going, son?

    Sonny: Uhhh, there's a game on tonight. I won't be late.

    Oiler thinks: Night time baseball? Eh, OK, a little exercise will do him some good. I wish he'd get some sunshine.

    And so it happens.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:Rich! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      uh... as a computer-stuff student at a community college (gee, I wonder what OS and software they "teach"?), I have often had to use the "CS gang sign".

      Extend left hand with a "peace sign" that falls over onto its face, as you simultaneously extend your right hand with the index finger pointing downward.

      That's right....

      Ctrl+Alt+Del, h0m33z.

  25. Already done, way bigger by Asmodai · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sorry, but has already been done ages ago in the Netherlands.

    This time it was a major battle between Ajax and Feyenoord (football clubs from Amsterdam and Rotterdam respectively) supporters, to quote:

    "In March 1997 an Ajax fan died after an organised fight between hundreds of Feyenoord and Ajax hooligans in a meadow near Beverwijk."

    This lead to the death of one Ajax supporter Cario Picornie.

    They organised this fight using cellulars.

    --
    Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
  26. Huh? by Ensign+Regis · · Score: 5, Funny

    "a profanity-laced Internet chat room"

    There's another kind?

  27. You know what they sing -- Reprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny


    2 nite, 2 nite,
    I'll flame ur ass 2 nite.
    For us, the n00bz will drop where they are.

    2 day
    I'll never take a shower,
    The FPS go slowly,
    And still the sky is light...

    Oh Doom, grow bright,
    Chat turns 2 day into a fight!

    - a.c.

  28. Back when my anon FTP was running and free by KalvinB · · Score: 3, Interesting

    someone uploaded "If Your Mother Only Knew" which a personal site run by some Asian "gangster" picked up on. I'm assuming he was some kind of ganster because what little I could read sounded pretty rough. Who knew AOL speak could sound tough? I know about it because they hotlinked it and my bandwidth was getting sucked up.

    So I changed it to a low bit quality version of "You Are My Sunshine."

    It didn't take long for them to lose the hot link to my site. And I didn't have to say anything to them.

    I can't help but think this mob problem could have been avoided if someone had just injected the forum with some happy fun kids' songs. Too much anger and stupidity, not enough funny.

    Ben

  29. Darwin by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 3, Funny
    "Some of them actually signed in with their true names, so that helped us identify people."

    Ah....Darwin works in mysterious ways sometimes....or perhaps some not so mysterious ways as found in this case.

    --
    Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
  30. Parental control? by troon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For goodness sake, these are kids aged 14-21. The policeman asked why the parents weren't keeping an eye on their internet usage: but what about keeping an eye on why your 14-year-old kid is going out at night with a baseball bat?!

    --
    Ydco co ,df C erb-y go. a Ekrpat t.fxrapev
  31. WHY IS THIS INSIGHTFUL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful
    We have enough violence in the world today. The last thing we need is to teach kids that violence is an acceptable means to resolve conflict. The world has enough "tough guys." We don't need anymore of them.

    Which is why I'm amazed that anyone would mod this as insightful. Advocating violence is insightful? While the world copes with the gruesome death of Mr. Berg we've got people advocating further violence and people thinking it's insightful? WTF?

  32. Re:Chat logs anyone? by 10Ghz · · Score: 3, Funny

    right here!

    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  33. Fight by wizard992 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is hilarious. Myself and my friends around Dallas had been talking about this fight all week, about how dumb it was in general, how stupid people were to let someone videotape it (that's how they identified the participants), and how surprised we were at the lack of knives and guns, and that most of the fights were one-on-one instead of the normal "gang up on one person" kind of fight you see around here. There has been a lot of video of the fight on local TV as well. It is amazing to see it show up on the Slashdot homepage, world colliding kind of strange.

    And no, these kids were not "computer nerds". In fact, that part of Garland is considered a low-wealth, blue collar area; these are just punk kids who happen to use computers.