Murder suspect poses with possible murder weapon on myspace

In another example of stupid criminals metaphorically shooting themselves in the foot with social networking sites, Deamonte Tavaris Brooks, 18, charged with one count of murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury stemming from a November 8 shooting, is helping investigators to build a case against him by having previously posed with the potential murder weapon in pictures featured on his myspace page, according to Michael Blesecker of the Raleigh News & Observer.

According to Blesecker, "The page is titled "Crip Swag" and makes numerous mentions of Brooks' affiliation with the Crips street gang."

Sounds like an upstanding member of the community to me.

Police covered their bases and obtained a search warrant to document any potential evidence found on the myspace page. The warrant was executed December 18th and Investigator M. Soucie noted that "Upon further investigation it was discovered the suspect had a MySpace account and had photos of the possible murder weapon along with comments and messages that may be related to this crime, the MySpace account was viewed and did in fact contain photos of the suspect holding several weapons."

I decided to check Mr. Brooks' Myspace page for myself to see if it is as self-incriminating as Blesecker makes it sound. He wasn't exagerrating:

The first two pictures are of what police believe to be the murder weapon. The other two are of an automatic rifle and a sawed-off shotgun.

It continues to amaze me with how stupid some people can be when it comes to Myspace and Facebook. Do you think these photos and "cryp swag" layout are going to shave any years off when it comes to his sentence? What amazes me even more is that it keeps on happening. You'd think that if you've dedicated yourself to a life of crime, or at least decided to dabble in the "thug lifestyle" that you would think twice about advertising your misdeeds and/or weapons arsenal on a website accessible to anybody with two thumbs and the IQ of a speed bump, let alone the COPS. Deamonte may not be the sharpest gangstrrr on the block, but at least he went down in style.

Social networking sites have turned into a real asset for investigators trying to put away criminals that are more concerned with looking good than not getting caught, it makes it easier for them to get these boys off the streets and make life safer for the rest of us, plus it gives me something to write about. It's unfortunate that this kid had to go and kill somebody to make a name for himself.

Perv's On Myspace

This is a press release from the NC Attorney General, more people ought to know about this stuff.


AG Cooper seeks info about possible thousands of sex offenders on MySpace
AGs demand that MySpace turn over the names of convicted sex offenders the company knows are on its site

Raleigh: MySpace needs to turn over the names of potentially thousands of registered sex offenders the company has identified on its website, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said today.

Cooper and a group of other state attorneys general believe that data from Sentinel Tech Holdings, a company working with MySpace, indicate that thousands of known sex offenders may have been confirmed as MySpace members. In a letter sent today to MySpace, six state attorney generals asked the company to provide the names and states of all registered sex offenders with profiles on its social networking site.

“MySpace is a treasure trove of potential victims for child predators,” said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. “Sex offenders have no business being on this site, and we believe MySpace has a responsibility to get them off the site.”

Today’s letter requests that MySpace tell the attorneys general by May 29 how many registered sex offenders have been found on its site and what steps the company has taken to remove them from the site. In addition the letter asks MySpace to provide details on what it has done to alert other MySpace users who have communicated with these offenders, and also to alert law enforcement about these offenders.

Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal are leading a group of attorneys general from 50 states and territories who have been pushing MySpace to do a better job protecting children from dangers on its site such as sexual predators and inappropriate content.

Across the country, law enforcement agencies have identified more than 200 cases where children were lured out of their home by predators they met on MySpace. In North Carolina, a former sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2006 for molesting a 15-year-old Cary boy he met on MySpace. In 2006, the NC State Bureau of Investigation arrested a Boiling Spring Lakes police officer for raping a 14-year-old girl he lured through MySpace.

Both North Carolina and Connecticut and a handful of other states are currently pushing legislation that would require social networking sites including MySpace to get parents’ permission before letting children join. Cooper is also pushing a measure that would make it a felony for convicted sex offenders to join social networking sites where children are members.

Today’s letter was signed by attorneys general from Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. A copy of the letter is attached.

###

STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL
A Communication From the Chief Legal Officers Of the Following States:
Connecticut – Georgia – Idaho – Mississippi – New Hampshire – North Carolina – Ohio – Pennsylvania
May 14, 2007
Mary Ellen Callahan
Hogan and Hartson, LLP
Columbia Square
555 Thirteenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Ms. Callahan:
As our states' chief legal officers, we are gravely concerned that sexual predators are using MySpace to lure children into face-to-face encounters and other dangerous activities. We write to you regarding MySpace’s December 2006 announcement with Sentinel Tech Holding regarding the identification of registered sex offenders on MySpace.
It is our understanding that the data from Sentinel reveals that thousands of known registered sexual offenders have been confirmed as MySpace members. If true, this dramatically exceeds the report from Wired magazine, which found 744 registered sex offenders with MySpace profiles. Perhaps thousands more sexual predators -- not registered or using fictitious names -- are lurking on your web site. We remain concerned about the design of your site, the failure to require parental permission, and the lack of safeguards necessary to protect our
children.
We therefore request the following information: First, how many registered sex offenders in the Sentinel database have been cross-referenced against MySpace’s membership?
Second, what is the exact number of known registered sex offenders who have been identified as members of MySpace to date? Please forward a list of the names of the registered sex offenders that you have identified with profiles on MySpace and the states in which they reside. Third, what steps has MySpace taken to alert law enforcement officials as well as MySpace users of such sex offenders? Finally, what steps has MySpace taken to remove sex offender profiles and how many have been removed?
We request a response by Tuesday, May 29, 2007. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Roy Cooper Attorney General North Carolina
Richard Blumenthal Attorney General Connecticut
Thurbert Baker Attorney General Georgia
Lawrence Wasden Attorney General Idaho
Jim Hood Attorney General Mississippi
Kelly A. Ayotte Attorney General New Hampshire
Marc Dann Attorney General Ohio
Tom Corbett Attorney General Pennsylvania

Jesus will hate you if you pass this on

So the bulletin page on myspace has turned into a substitute for all those damn email forwards we all used to get. You know the ones where some cancer patient named Karen in Kansas has one week to live and if you pass the email on to thirty of the unfortunate souls in your address book the doctors will move her up the donor list and give her a new spleen that will save her life.

There's something you don't know about this story. First of all, there is no Karen in Kansas, and if there was, she'd be dead. It's okay, you didn't kill her. The chain letter has been wandering around the internet for seven years now, and because poor Karen only had one week to live she ought to be long gone by now.

Even if there really was a Karen in Kansas and the fact that her email had been forwarded all over the country somehow convinced a bunch of doctors to give her a new spleen she'd still be dead. Why do you ask? Because she HAD CANCER! So what she needed was a cure for cancer, not a new spleen, and thanks to your ignorance her parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a procedure their daughter didn't need, and now they have a dead daughter and a mountain of debt. I hope you're happy!

It's so nice to not get emails like that anymore, but now instead of emails the bulletin space is flooded with this excrement.

Don't even get me started on the bulletins that tell you at the end to pass it on or in two weeks your second cousin will suffer a stroke or your crush will dump his or her boy or girl and come over to your house tonight and make hot, sweaty, musky, passionate love to you. Do we really believe this crap!?!

Let me tell you something, over the last few months I've been conducting an experiment. Instead of doing what the bulletin said and passing it on for whatever reason, I'll tell you what I did, I ignored it! And guess what! None of my cousins, first or second or even third, have had any kind of stroke, and I haven't had bad luck for eleven years. I even took it one step further, I've gone out and stepped on several cracks on the sidewalk, and believe it or not my mothers back is not broken!

So I'm here to tell you it's safe to NOT pass on this junk to our friends. Nothing bad will happen and our friends will appreciate that we didn't waste their time. This goes for a lot of the surveys too, some of them are clever and interesting, but knowing who you last hugged isn't going to change the way I view the world. I know, crazy.