The proliferation of social networks such as YouTube, Xanga, Facebook, and Technorati, just to name a few, have opened up a new avenue for criminals as well, not to only share their nasty deeds, but to do it in living color through streaming video. You wouldn’t think that criminals would be so stupid as to put evidence of their crimes on the Internet for all to see, but they do—a lot. Law enforcement is finally catching on.

The Florida Teen Beating

As law enforcement veterans, we’re exposed on a daily basis to things that would disturb most reasonable people, but one recent case left us horrified both as parents and women—the video of the 16-year-old Lakeland, Florida teen who was repeatedly beaten and harassed by six of her female classmates, all teenagers, even as young as 14 years old (see Figure 13.1).

Figure 13.1 Still image from Florida teen beating video in which a 16-year-old tries to defend herself from her attackers.

According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the victim was staying at the home of one of her attackers during spring break. On March 30, 2008, at approximately 8:00 p.m., the victim arrived at the residence and was met by two classmates, who both began yelling at the victim and threatening her.

The victim retreated to a bedroom and was met by another young teen hiding in the bedroom, who began insulting and threatening her. This young woman allegedly struck the victim several times in the face, and slammed the victim’s head into the bedroom wall, knocking the victim unconscious.

When the victim came to, she was on the couch in the living room surrounded by six girls. According to the victim, the suspects held her down and began to beat her again and yell at her while one of the attackers videotaped the assault. At one point in the video, the suspects block the victim from leaving the residence.

Two teenage boys waited outside the home as lookouts.

After the attack was over, three of the suspects forced the victim into a vehicle and drove her to another location where she was finally released with a threat from the suspects warning her not to contact law enforcement or she would be beaten even worse.

Once at a friend’s home, the victim called law enforcement and was transported to Lakeland Regional Medical Center by ambulance for injuries sustained as a result of the beating. She was treated for a concussion, damage to her left eye and left ear, and numerous bruises.

The six girls involved in the beating were charged with felony battery and false imprisonment. They are being charged as adults. The two boys who acted as lookouts are also being charged. Although it is doubtful the sentence would be this severe, felony kidnapping is punishable up to life imprisonment.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called the attack “animalistic”. He said, “I’ve been involved in law enforcement for 35 years, and I’ve seen a lot of extremely violent events, but I’ve never seen children, 14 to 18 years of age, engage in this conduct for a 30-minute period of time and then make these video clips”.

The victim’s father said the teens’ motivation for the attack was to produce a video that would become popular on YouTube. The mother of one of the suspects said the victim had provoked the other teens by threatening and insulting them on MySpace.

Our Reaction

We don’t know what the real motivation was behind this brutal attack. As law-enforcement professionals and as parents, we understand that teenagers don’t always act rationally. It’s hard to even express how vile and sickening this whole episode was to hear about and view. We couldn’t decide what was worse: the fact that these young women resorted to brutal violence in what was a “gang-like” assault to resolve a conflict, the fact that they thought it appropriate to videotape the assault, or the fact that they laughed and encouraged each other to continue to beat the victim. It’s a sad commentary that does not reflect what most teens are about, but we mention it here because it illustrates the mindset of a generation that thinks in terms of videos and posting on the Internet as a normal course of their social lives—good or bad.

In an ironic twist, a couple from Lakeland who do not even have children have been repeatedly harassed by callers from as far away as Brooklyn, New York, because their phone number was mistakenly associated with the teen beatings on YouTube. The couple, who has had the number for years and uses it for business purposes, has tolerated phone call after threatening phone call. “I’m calling from Brooklyn you f__ piece of s__,” one caller said. “Let me tell you something. Look out your f__ window. I’ll slit your throat and beat the s__ out of you”. The phone rings approximately every 3 minutes. Police have increased patrols in their area since their address was also disclosed.

A recently aired story from a local news station shows a man in a bathrobe who strips and starts dancing to the theme from Rocky around a set mouse trap. We all know where this is headed—he places his penis on the trap, which then snaps on the family jewels. His reaction is also caught on film.

Dozens of news stations as well as online forums picked up the story. Needless to say, the clip can be accessed on the Internet, and as disturbing as people claim the whole behavior (and subsequent public airing) is, it has generated a considerable amount on online attention. Not only can you chat about it, comment about it, and blog about it, you can view it on several sites. This is not the first such incident that has hit the Internet—one teen actually did the same act for $20 and a pack of cigarettes. However, this incident was intended to be viewed over public cable access on television. The reaction over the public television episode locally hit the Internet and the word spread. Twenty years ago, a childish stunt like this would not have garnered much attention. However, in today’s world, millions can now view this type of infamous idiocy almost instantaneously.

It used to be that people would videotape their families and send in their funny home videos to television shows for a shot at seeing themselves on primetime TV or even for some prize money. However, YouTube and other video sites have changed the nature of sharing video. Although the funny clips can still be found, it is just as common to find kids daring each other to perform reckless and dangerous stunts, or for criminals to video themselves committing crimes.

YouTube, an independent subsidiary of Google, allows people to post videos online with free registration. One can post videos for private or public viewing. According to their own policies, YouTube does not allow nudity, graphic violence, or hate crimes to be posted. However, YouTube often depends upon their own members to police what is uploaded and for viewers to flag such videos in order to have them removed. It is estimated that approximately 10 hours of video is uploaded onto YouTube every single minute, making for a considerable amount of material to censor. YouTube does have a division dedicated to working with law enforcement to investigate crimes memorialized on their site. Despite their efforts, though, there is little control over the material uploaded onto the site until someone finds it offensive enough to report it.

It is very common to find clips of people performing idiotic stunts for a shot at fame. Remember the guy who stuck his genitals in the mousetrap? A quick search of YouTube will confirm this was not an “original” act. Other stunts include fire, bicycles, vehicles, skateboards, and taunting animals, much like what appeared in the popular Jackass series and movies.

Then there are the videos that document victimizing others, sometimes violently. Some of these crimes include burglaries, rape, homicide, and gang violence. For example, Twin Falls, Idaho police were seeking information on a video posted in which a male is apparently feeding beer to an infant. In the clip, other young children are also allegedly drinking. In another investigation in July of 2007, the FBI and Jackson County, Texas police tracked down individuals who allegedly gave a toddler the drug ecstasy while the young child was unsecured laying unresponsive on the floor of a van. The video uploaded to YouTube showed the toddler’s eyes rolled back so that only the whites showed. Comments could be heard in the video about how the child may have been given ecstasy. There were reportedly three adults and four teens in the video as well, with the 21-year-old mother of the child driving the van. The people involved in this horrific example of child abuse were tracked down through the YouTube and MySpace accounts connected to the video.

In July of 2008, teens videotaped their crime spree through Shawnee and Lawrence, Kansas and broadcast it on YouTube. They spray-painted a logo around skate parks and lit an M-80 firecracker attached to a spray paint can behind a local business. A Shawnee officer found the videos on YouTube, which provided very important clues.

Utilizing websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube as investigative tools is becoming more and more common for police, because the videos are documentation of actual crimes and therefore excellent evidence. Searching YouTube has become a regular duty of many local school resource officers and detectives. Investigators can find many clues about crimes and who may have perpetrated them within these videos. The account information connected with such as video, such as email, user ID, and even the IP address at the time of the posting, are also important clues for police and can provide strong leads to track the criminals involved.

In May of 2008, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated the assault of two teenagers with a weapon outside of a night club. A video of the incident was located, and the RCMP posted a link on their website, asking for community assistance in identifying the perpetrators. This is becoming a common investigative technique, in addition to the use of such programs as Crimeline and Crime Stoppers, where images captured of crimes are posted and individuals can leave tips if they have information on a particular crime.

In November of 2007, authorities in New Jersey placed a video clip on YouTube with the hope of tracking down the suspect in the beating death of a Rowan University student. The clip showed the suspect inside a convenience store on the night of the murder. The victim was approached by several men in a vehicle who asked for directions to a party, then proceeded to punch and kick the victim leaving him on the ground. The victim succumbed to his injuries the following day. Investigators hoped that this video tip, along with a reward, would bring some important leads their way. As of July 2008, this murder is still unsolved. As of this writing, this unsolved case is also among the “Fugitive Data Files” on the website for America’s Most Wanted, which aired the story in January of 2008.

The Dallas Police Department has launched their own YouTube page where surveillance videos are posted in the hope that viewers will provide some leads. In July, Dallas PD solved their first case using the YouTube site when they arrested two suspects who had stolen flat-screen televisions off a wall in an upscale hotel for pets called “Pet Ritz”.

British police are posting audio clips of hoax emergency calls and calls to the British emergency line 999 (akin to 911 in the States) with the hope of shaming people into stop wasting emergency dispatch and emergency service resources. Examples include one woman calling the emergency line to ask what year the Internet was started and a man complaining that his wife refused to make him anything other than salmon sandwiches for lunch. This initiative was started because the Avon and Somerset police were receiving more than 400 prank calls per month on the emergency line.

Even residents are taking matters into their own hands. Residents of a neighborhood in downtown Madrid, Spain became aggravated at the prostitution occurring in their streets at night, so they began filming the activity using webcams. Neighbors claimed that there were upwards of 100 girls working the streets at night as well as activity in a building they claimed was used as a brothel. They felt their many complaints to the local police were being ignored, so they broadcast the clips of prostitutes negotiating with their clients and even arguing with their pimps in the hope of shaming the johns and deterring the activity. Ironically enough, an association that defends the rights of prostitutes in Spain, called Heteria, made a formal complaint that the neighbors had violated the prostitutes’ right to privacy by videotaping the activity. Residents were ordered to stop filming and fined for broadcasting the images of people without their consent. The Spanish Data Protection Agency reported that this was the first time that action had been taken against private citizens for invading people’s privacy. On a more positive note, local authorities have now installed cameras on that neighborhood street.

The most notorious example of YouTube use was in the recent arrest of Radovan Karadzic. Karadzic was the leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian civil war in 1992–1995 in the former Yugoslavia. Regarded as the “Osama Bin Laden of Europe,” Karadzic was the chief architect behind the slaughter of an estimated 8,000 Muslim men in Bosnia during that time. Wanted for these atrocious war crimes, Karadzic went into hiding in 1997 and eluded capture for 11 years. Upon his arrest in July of 2008, it was discovered that Karadzic had been hiding in plain sight for all those years as Dr. Dragan Dabic. As Dr. Dabic, Karadzic was a practicing homeopathic physician who lectured in community centers, wrote articles for medical journals, and composed poetry. He had dramatically changed his appearance by growing his gray hair very long, wearing it in a ponytail, and covering his facial features with an overgrown mustache and beard. He also wore large framed glasses and obtained false papers for his new identity. He had been living in an apartment in the Serb capital of New Belgrade, and had openly lectured and attended conventions. Dr. Dragan Dabic had an official website advertising his philosophies and how to contact him for television appearances, private consultations, seminars, and public forum invitations (www.dragandabic.com).

Video clips of his appearances and lectures can be seen on YouTube, and as of this writing, the official website is still accessible.

Of course, it should be no surprise that YouTube is not only used by criminals bragging about their misdeeds and cops looking to solve cases, but also by aspiring miscreants of society looking for a little video instruction. The wanna-be methamphetamine maker can find a how-to video on YouTube, and now even the child porn collector can learn how to best hide his illegal collection thanks to a 4-minute demonstration of how to use a new program to hide videos, programs, and photographs on the ever popular iPhone (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhJs9XQEF44&feature=related). The software, called HidePod, can be purchased by using PayPal directly through the developer and installed on a “jailbroken” iPhone. Jailbreaking allows unauthorized software to be added to an iPhone and is reportedly easy (and free) to do. There’s even a site that gives users instructions for jailbreaking in 45 seconds (http://lifehacker.com/370532/jailbreak-any-iphone-or-ipod-touch-in-45-seconds). The HidePod software appears on the iPhone touch screen as a calculator, and when the user enters a password, hidden programs and media can be accessed. This is yet one more hurdle for law enforcement to keep an eye out for when investigating crimes on video.