Fort Wayne: Local woman’s son was murdered after he was threatened online.
Demarcus Adams was still dying in his mother’s arms March 14 when his phone flashed the news that “Scooby” had been shot.
At that point, Denise Trigg figures, the only people who could have known about her 23-year-old son’s murder were the people who killed him – presumably the same people who only days before had been threatening his life on the Internet.
“On his Facebook page they were posting pictures of bullets on plates, saying ‘RIP, Scooby’ and letting me know that they had my address and were going to blow my stomach out. After he was shot, it was ‘Scooby Do, where are you?’ ” said Trigg, who knows only too well the role “social media” are playing in the violent crime afflicting Fort Wayne and too many other American cities.
The good news is that police know it, too – and are increasingly using the thugs’ own high-tech tools against them.
“We mine social media for intelligence constantly. We need to stay one step ahead,” said Police Chief Rusty York, who said members of the department’s gang unit and other local, state and federal officers regularly monitor Facebook and other sites not only for information that might not only help solve crimes but stop violence before it starts.
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