gang hoax

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: GANGS (was Gang Initiation Rituals)
From: egstein@husc10.harvard.edu (Evan Stein)
Date: 17 May 94 18:57:15 GMT

I hate getting trolled.  I've been nailed. I went to look for backup support to 
what I believed was a true story.  Well I found quite the opposite. 
 Here it is.  Straight from Lexis/Nexis....

               
         Copyright 1994 Globe Newspaper Company  
                                The Boston Globe

                     January 23, 1994, Sunday, City Edition

SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. 31

LENGTH: 625 words

HEADLINE: Police label  gang  story a hoax;
Rumors of motorists killed in initiation rite spread from coast to coast

BYLINE: By David Armstrong, Contributing Reporter

 BODY:
    Companies are warning employees about it, police departments are inundated
with calls about it, and relatives are telling loved ones about it.

   The object of the widespread talk is a bizarre new  gang  initiation that
requires prospective members to drive in a car with no  headlights  on, 
wait for the first friendly motorist to flash a high-beam signal as a warning, 
and then follow and kill the helpful driver.     
                 
All across the country, the story goes, innocent drivers are falling prey 
to this senseless rite of passage.

There is only one problem with this  gang  story: It isn't true.

   From New England to California, police departments have been flooded with
reports of the initiation and calls from nervous residents concerned about
 driving  at night.

   The rumor is so out of control in Massachusetts that State Police yesterday
said they would issue a bulletin notifying law enforcement agencies across the
region that the  gang  initiation story is false.

  "We have been getting calls about this from small towns and cities," said Lt. 
Pat Greaney, commander of the State Police Special Services Section. "We have
confirmed it is a hoax. We have no incidents."

   The rumor gained credibility in Massachusetts when the Lynn Police 
Department was duped by an unknown prankster and issued a memo in late 
November on police
department letterhead warning of the  gang  initiation.

 The memo found its way out of police headquarters and has been faxed, copied  
and passed along by the general public, said Lynn Police Capt. Joseph Rowe.

   "It's like that shampoo ad where you tell two friends and they tell two
friends and so on," he said.

  The panic escalated to the point where several companies issued dire warnings 
to employees about the initiation.

   "This thing is really gone. It's taken on a life of its own,"said Lt. Robert 
Morrill, commander of the Brockton police detective squad."Everyone is hearing  
about it, but we know of no incidents."

   The rumor began in September in California and quickly spread to other 
states. On Sept. 25, a small Mississippi police department broadcast a  
national advisory regarding the alleged  gang  initiation after receiving 
a call from a resident who heard the rumor on his CB radio.

   Late last year, according to police in Massachusetts, the rumor made its way  
to this area. In the past two weeks, police have been flooded with new reports
of the initiation story.           
        
       The rumor has incidents occurring in Braintree, Brockton, Fall River and
Taunton. Police in all those communities said yesterday they have had no such
incidents.

   Greaney said police in Wendell, a small town in western Massachusetts,
contacted him Friday seeking information on the  gang  initiation.

   Wendell police called after a bus company in the area produced a flier
warning its drivers not to signal any vehicles traveling at night without
lights, Greaney said.

  Rowe also said Lynn police have seen an increase in calls regarding the rumor 
in the past two weeks. The department recently received six calls on the gang   
story in one day.

   "We were hoping it would die a slow death," he said.

   No one is exactly sure who started the rumor or why.

  In California, police said the rumor was sent by fax all over the state. Soon 
after the faxes appeared, the rumor was widely disseminated on electronic
bulletin boards, police said.                   

 Lynn police said the information they used for the inaccurate memo arrived by 
fax, falsely labelled as an "alert" from the Illinois State Police.  While the
gang  story is only a tall tale, police said motorists should still use caution
 on the road.

   "Given some of the incidents of violence that occur over nothing today, I
wouldn't get involved with anyone on the highways or roadways anyway," Rowe
said.


January 25, 1995