Inside the Weird World of Tracking Gangs on Social Media

Graffiti has served as the billboard of gang violence for decades, or, as Inspector Jon Cargill of the gang unit for Oklahoma City – one of the worst cities for gang violence in the country – puts it, "graffiti is the newspaper of the street." It's a means of provocation and a tool to lay claim to streets, of showing other gang members you aren't scared to fight. "Gangs put the information out there as a way to show territory, to intimidate people, to show disrespect to other groups," Cargill says. "It's a way of riling things up, of going after each other, and it works."

But gang graffiti today has taken a turn for the worse. It's going viral, and virtual. Gang members aren't just writing on the walls of their neighborhoods, they're marking up the walls of Facebook and Twitter, bringing the war of the streets to the world of social media. "Facebook is their new street corner," Sgt. Lou Savelli, a former NYPD gang specialist who now runs a law enforcement training firm, explains. "Rather than yelling at each other on the streets and on the walls, now they do it on the internet and everyone can see."