Mixed feelings over Philadelphia's flash-mob curfew

[The Northerner]

Philadelphia's authorities have ordered a weekend evening curfew for under-18 years old in an effort deter teenagers from wreaking havoc in so-called flash mobs.

As Britain looks to America for answers to the rioting that has rocked England over the last week, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan visits Philadelphia to see how its new measures will work.

The phenomenon known as flash mobbing, where groups of teenagers gather after alerting one another via mobile phone, Twitter and Facebook and rampage through the town centre, has frightened residents and alarmed Philadelphia's city government.

While the scenes haven't been as violent or as sustained as those in urban England in recent days, crowds of teenagers have beaten and robbed people and shops have been damaged.

Last Friday 7 August saw yet more trouble in the City of Brotherly Love.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14509831

[Cleita]

1. I think flash mobs can be useful if non-violent.

There needs to be leaders though that are level-headed and who can control their posse.

[emilyg]

2. We had a flash-mob descend on one of my local Walgreen's.

Shelves were wiped out of merchandise, broken Employees were terrified.

[Cleita]

6. That's just hooliganism. I was talking about using it

as an activist tool for protests.

[emilyg]

8. I think flash mobs are hooligans. They probably

couldn't tell you anything about government.

[elehhhhna]

17. although they cat like the koch bros. and congress

smash& grab government = smash & grab citizens

[indurancevile]

14. where?

[emilyg]

18. Atlanta.

[elehhhhna]

16. These are all about crime & should rightfully be called WILDING

and it's happening in Chicago.

It's a very short leap from "nothing to gain" to "nothing to lose".

[indurancevile]

19. "wilding" is a bullshit word.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1728499&mesg_id=1730311

[elehhhhna]

20. oh cripes. welcome. just what we need - another indignant, language-patrol volunteer! yay!

Frikkin "flashmob" makes less sense.

What do you propose we call these, um, jerkoffjamborees?

Wait! I've got it! "Philadelphians", because t hey're doing this there,too.

[indurancevile]

21. i call it psyops.

[elehhhhna]

22. go on. what's the goal ofa psyops excercise like this?

Lemme guess; justification for pockets of (they'll NEVER call it)MartialLaw and a big bonus bosst tot he 217-centx-per-hour prisonlabor force "we" are apparently developing.

IDEA! Write a big-font/plentyo'whitespace bushite biz book aimed at improvin gthe attitudes and ptoductivity of our captive prisonlabor force. Wroking title: "--Who Moved My Soap?"

[rucky]

3. The police admit it's a few bad apples

so why the collective punishment?

It's a sign they can't control it. So somebody willing to beat the crap out of someone will abide by a curfew? I don't see this helping.

[Drale]

5. Because a few bad apples can ruin it for the bunch

I think you just have to ask any muslim about that.

[MrSlayer]

4. They have to do something about it.

Because people are going to end up killed because of it. These assholes have crippled and maimed more then a few people recently. It's only a matter of time before someone starts shooting at them in defense.

[The Northerner]

11. +1

[-..__...]

7. It's becoming worse, and more prevelent...

List of "Flash Mobs gone wrong... http://violentflashmobs.com/

From the websites owner...

The purpose of this site is to document dangerous, violent, or otherwise unwanted flash mobs and group mayhem. I find these crimes to be particularly galling because they're indicative of societal dysfunction, rather than an individual pathology.

Definition of a flash mob: A large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse.

Definition of a wilding: The activity by a gang of youths of going on a protracted and violent rampage in a public place, attacking or mugging people at random.

I fully admit it's often difficult to distinguish between a flash mob, a wilding, a riot, an unruly crowd, a swarm robbery, and a fight with an unequal number of participants. One incident often has elements of all those things so you may find some of the flash mobs I've identified don't fit your definition.

http://violentflashmobs.com/about

I somewhat agree with the author here.

"Flash Mobs"... "Flash Robs"... "Wilding"... "Swarm Robbery"... etc.

Semantics and trifling definitions are unimportant here... I'm reasonably certain that victims of these roving packs of vermin would agree also.

What was once associated with a fun, enjoyable and sometimes meaningful gathering, has been ruined and co-opted by criminal assholes and miscreants.

Regardless... this kind of shit is getting out of hand and unfortunately, there's no easy solution to preventing the "bad apples" from ruining it for everyone else.

[indurancevile]

15. "wilding" came from the central park jogger case. which turned out to have

been hyped by the media into a big scare story about hordes of black youth randomly attacking people for fun. 5 black kids were arrested & convicted based on confessions & nothing else.

later turned out:

Although the suspects (except Salaam) had confessed on videotape in the presence of a parent or guardian, they retracted their statements within weeks, claiming that they had been intimidated, lied to, and coerced into making false confessions.<9> The detectives had indeed used ruses to convince the suspects to confess, with Salaam confessing to having been present only after he was told that fingerprints were found on the victim's clothing.<10> While the confessions themselves were videotaped, the hours of interrogation that preceded the confessions were not.

No DNA evidence tied the suspects to the crime, so the prosecution's case rested almost entirely on the confessions.<1> In fact, analysis indicated that the DNA collected at the crime scene did not match any of the suspects — and that the crime scene DNA had all come from a single, as yet unknown person.<9>

In 2002, another man's confession, plus DNA evidence confirming his crime, led the district attorney's office to recommend vacating the convictions of the teenagers originally accused and sentenced to prison. In 2002, convicted rapist and murderer Matias Reyes, serving a life sentence for other crimes but not, at that point, associated by the police with the attack on Meili, declared that he had committed the assault when he was 17, and that he had acted alone. The DNA evidence confirmed his participation in the crime and identified him as the sole contributor of the semen found in and on the victim "to a factor of one in 6,000,000,000 people".<11> Supporters of the five defendants again claimed their confessions had been coerced. An examination of the inconsistencies between their confessions led the prosecutor to question the veracity of the confessions. District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau's office wrote:

"A comparison of the statements reveals troubling discrepancies. ... The accounts given by the five defendants differed from one another on the specific details of virtually every major aspect of the crime... In many other respects the defendants' statements were not corroborated by, consistent with, or explanatory of objective, independent evidence. And some of what they said was simply contrary to established fact."<11>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_Jogger_case

I remember very well how that case was hyped, how all the usual pundits came out to decry the breakdown of society, the breakdown of the black family, blah blah -- while the media published crazed reports about this new (& entirely imaginary) phenomenon of "wilding".

after the initial hype around the case died down when the black kids were charged, i never heard anything more of "wilding" or of hordes of black kids running around randomly attacking people, even though the media told me it was a "trend" of "disaffected black youth" who were "monsters"!!!!!!!happening everywhere!!!!!!

it was 99% bullshit. and i am willing to bet that this will be as well.

the media get the facts wrong. they exaggerate. they spin based on politics. they lie. and they do psyops. i have personally experienced a major case of this and have never taken any of these kinds of stories without a dose of salts since.

[roamer65]

9. They have no choice.

Either impose the curfew or someone is going to get killed.

[applegrove]

10. What they need is for a few people, kids or parents, to alert the police every time it is messaged.

Then the police can get there and arrest kids for disturbing the peace or whatnot. Word would soon get around that texting is not a secure way to rob or attack.

[Shandris]

12. While I find the phrase abhorrent in its implication...

...'Snitches get stitches' is a philosophy that has transcended any and all racial lines and socio-economic barriers.

Good luck with getting kids to turn one another in.

[JVS]

13. There are always enough beefs between teenagers that one can turn on another.