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.