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.