In the days of West Side Story, the Jets and the Sharks – or, rivals like high school car clubs who wanted a showdown – passed the word the old-fashioned way: between their schools, or on neutral turf. That was then, this is now: a pair of Texas high school car clubs arranged a March rumble in an Internet chat room which has now resulted in 33 arrests.
And at least one criminal justice scholar thinks this isn't going to prove a one-time thing, either.
"Gangs already have their own alphabet, their own language, their own hand signals, so why not use the Internet?" said Radford University criminal justice professor Tod Burke to the Associated Press. "Is this case unusual? Yes. But what I'm afraid is going to happen, this is probably just the beginning of it."
For a pair of gangs who arranged the scrum the newfangled way, they sure got down to business in the time-honored tradition: fists, baseball bats, shovels, and other implements. The problem was, they may not have bargained on the newfangled technology getting them arrested: authorities reportedly used a videotape of the rumble – made by one of the rumblers – plus the chat room itself to find and bust the suspects, some of whom had actually used their real names in the chat, according to several reports.
And, unfortunately, the rumble didn't exactly lack for an audience. The AP said the videotape from the scrum showed a crowd of onlookers cheering as the gangs fought.
The story has been getting widespread media attention around the United States – from the Chicago Sun-Times to the Omaha World-Herald to the Orange County Register – ever since the May 11 arrests, which could result in sentences of two to 20 years and up to $10,000 each in fines for those convicted.
Variations of the story had been picked up by several newspapers and broadcast outlets by the early morning of May 13, as well as the Texas press.
