Funny how it spreads...Something interesting from Today locally

[The Straight Story]

So I popped into work a tad early today and heard a lady talking to one of our receptionists talking about news that some MS13 gang members were planning on initiating new members this weekend - basically, they would hit your car from behind and when you got out of the car they would shoot you.

Off and on all day there were mentions of this in local news. One of our techs even emailed the IT staff about. Hours before he did I had already heard an interview on a local talk radio station with a police chief in Delano (I think it was) that this was probably false and originated with some lady on the east coast (we are in Bakersfield, CA).

Emails were flying, news stations were buzzing, people were calling each other all to tell people to beware of MS13 (read, hispanics) hitting your car and then shooting you when you got out.

I live in the hood. Mostly Hispanics and blacks here, mostly pretty cool folks with the exception of a few 'gang-bangers' (and the assholes who stole my lawnmower last week). Poor people just doing the best they can. Overall though, the people here are awesome and grounded in reality - they don't need $400 coach purses to make them feel special, which scares the rich folks in Rosedale I suspect :)


So tonight, not the top story I might add, we find this:
http://www.kget.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d5aeec1d-95fc-4dc6-ac18-7a03a4dda6c1
Gang initiation rumors turn out false

The 8th story on their website - earlier today it was top story on TV and local talk radio....

News snippet:
Gang initiation rumors turn out false

The Delano Police Department Gang Unit received information Thursday that gang members planned to run into random cars, and then shoot the driver.

Local resident, Alma Herrera said, "Well it's really scary just to know someone's out there to rear end you and not knowing the consequences. There are so many people out there, especially senior citizens, who don't know what's going on. They get rear ended and they get scared. I mean I'm scared."

Some Delano residents have been to frightened to drive the streets since the Delano Police received information of possible gang initiations.

Delano Police sent out a release urging people to use caution.

The release said gang members were told to bump cars from behind and "as the driver of the victim vehicle exits, the prospective members will open fire."

Since then, stories of the gang initiations have been spreading like wildfire.

Many people received this text message saying: "This is no joke" and linking the initiations to the criminal gang MS-13.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Why do people believe this stuff with no evidence?

[rockymountaindem]

1. Why do people believe that kind of thing with no evidence?

It fits their preconceived notions and expectations of how people they don't really understand will behave.

[The Straight Story]

3. And that, my friend, is what we must fight against - and sometimes we are just as guilty

From painting religious folks with a broad brush to people on the right painting hispanics/etc with one.

All in all, people get intellectually lazy and buy into the hype.

Thank god we have had people grounded in reality to fight off this stupid crap.

Sadly, one of the techs I deal with bought into all of this today - and he is dem supporter all the way.

Now I CAN see the worry some people have over this gang (they are brutal) but to simply buy into any fear mongering that is put out there seems a bit over the top to me.

[Guaranteed]

4. Bam.

Nailed it.

[Muttocracy]

8. yep.

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. I will look under my desk for weapons of mass destruction

to find out how those gang bangers will behave.

[Mountainman]

11. When I lived in Highland Park near Los Angeles it was real.

The husband of the apartment manager was shot as he got to his car one morning. The gun fire could be heard at night. We did not go out of the apartment complex at night. This was as school began in the fall. This was in the late 80's.

[Guaranteed]

13. People shoot out of fear.

The fear needs to stop.

[Mountainman]

15. It was for gang initiation.

[Guaranteed]

16. Why do people join gangs? nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

17. I lived in Denver downtown in the 90s..... Cripps and the Bloods

fought. The problem is, his town was the final destination
of the "GRAPES OF WRATH" as it was then as it is now.

I suggest more history, for understanding the history on what he is witnessing now.

He is a former Cop.. Good Guy.

Follow the money

[BulletproofLandshark]

2. I got that email through my MySpace account

Apparently those rumors went nationwide because I heard about that supposed MS-13 initiation from several people at work today, and I live in VA.

[The Straight Story]

6. The question is, why do so many believe it so easily?

Yes, MS13 is bad news - but does that mean we jump on the bandwagon when any news story comes out?

I mention this whole thing because it brings to mind bush's enemies and the whole propaganda thing. We hear that Al Qaeda released a new tape, or is planning on doing this or that, and some buy right into it without hesitation. Because we have come to expect that behavior from that group.

With the RW mindset around here it worries me that people would worry so much about people and gangs, then tie that to a race of people, which only seems to foment hate towards those people.

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. This shit has been going on for years

Look at the power structures of your town.

I know you town and it has always been fascist.

[BulletproofLandshark]

14. I , for one, didn't believe it for a second.

However, if you knew the makeup of my area, you could see how people could fall for this. MS-13 has been active in my area for at least a decade now, and some of their activities here have made the wrong kind of headlines:

This girl was murdered just a few miles from my house:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Paz
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/17/ms13.trial.verdicts/index.html

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. This area has always been a filter to the valley

from Mexico for labor to pick the crops for California's
harvest that helps feed the World.

Bakerfield has been called the armpit of California
because of its environmental, corruption, and anti labor stench.

However Bakersfield is the gateway to one of
the greatest valleys in the world that supplies food for the planet.

So maybe something is being played here by the powers that may be.

[The Straight Story]

23. It is indeed the armpit of CA (like Toledo is in Ohio....)

So, you get out my way much, would be nice to meet a fellow DU'er sometime (outside of my wife that is).

[Guaranteed]

5. Good post, Straight.

;)

[MADem]

7. Hmmmm, bump the car, eh? It used to be "flash the lights" in the old days.

This is not a new story. It's recycled from an oldie but goodie.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/crime/a/lights_out.htm

heard this one about a year ago when I was living up in Seattle. The teller seemed to think it was happening at that time in and around the Pugetopolis, but that seemed unlikely to me. However, if the story were told in the context of, say, Los Angeles (or even New York, Chicago, Detroit, etc.) it would actually seem sort of plausible. Anyway, here goes:

The story is that a new gang initiation ritual has become prevalent in our city. The hoodlums pile in a car, at night, and drive the highways and byways with their lights off. The first person who 'flashes' them with their lights (in the time-honored gesture of 'hey, idiot, your lights are off!') becomes their prey. The gangbangers then pursue the samaritan and the initiate must gun him or her down without mercy.....It is believed that one of the earliest outbreaks of the rumor (in 1993) may have been inspired by a real-life incident that occured one year before -- the shooting of Stockton, California school secretary Kelly Freed, who was a passenger in an automobile whose driver gestured at a car full of teenagers to inform them that their headlights were off. Mistaking the hand signal as an insult, one of the teens fired a gun at the car Freed was riding in, killing her. Police determined that none of the youths were gang members, nor was the incident connected with an "initiation rite."

On the Internet

Email versions of what has come to be known as the "Lights Out" legend began appearing in October 1998, perhaps inspired by the release of the popular horror film "Urban Legend," in which the apocryphal gang-initiation tale figured prominently. The online alerts resulted in a fresh flurry of panicked inquiries to police departments in cities and towns throughout the U.S., many of which were already aware of the rumor by then but lacked the information to either substantiate or disprove it.

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. Who owns the local news station?

Follow the money, follow the power..

Same old shit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. I'll be the contrarian here and not quite say with no evidence

Worked in EMS for ten years... and gang initiations (yes even in a border town on the MEXICAN side of the border) rarely involve non gang members

Usually they are pretty brutal beat ins, that rarely involve a 9.11 call (yep when they went too far)

But in extremely rare circumstances they do go after civies.

In ten years I think we saw it once..

And no, it wasn't MS 13, it was the local version of one of the san diego gangs, that also controlled part of the drug market in Tijuana

And that was the MO... of course we wondered if the victim wasn't that innocent if you catch me drift.

But overall, today I was listening to a podcast of the John Elliot Show, and a caller from Africa said something that was VERY interesting.

Race in the US takes the place of tribes in Africa... chew on that one, and the creation of the other

[Tunkamerica]

19. This was all over NC a few days ago

...on the local news the authorities were calling it an "urban legend".

[Ichingcarpenter]

20. Control by fear

it is not just nationally, look at who owns
the news that you receive locally.

The TV stations are not owned locally now.

There is shit and violence but it is not the big bad baddies that you think
it is even sponsored by the drugs brought in by the CIA.

Hell, they found a plane crashed in Mexico that had 7 tons
of shit on it, that was the same plane used to take
PRISONERS TO GITMO.

THAT IS A PROVEN FACT.

[Tunkamerica]

22. actually i work at the station and it is owned locally

capital broadcasting is one of the few locally owned television/radio companies around here. he has two in raleigh/durham, one in wilmington and one in charlotte with a few radio stations and lots of real estate thrown in.

[gauguin57]

24. Snopes calling it "undetermined" so far.

But it sure sounds like the "gang initiation" urban legends that spread all the time.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/gangs/carbump.asp

[leftofthedial]

25. they believe in al qaeda and that OBL did 9-11

they'll believe ANYTHING without evidence