diy tattoo foot pedal | I am a drug dealer not a gun dealer! Novel Defense

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David “Big Dave” Lewisbey’s only legitimate source of income was a part-time job at Home Depot.

But the 23-year-old former Thornton Township High School offensive lineman has a novel excuse for how

he got the wads of $100 bills he brandished in Facebook photos, his luxury cars and his cache of more than 100 weapons, including assault rifles and submachine guns.

“I made nearly all my money selling weed,” Lewisbey testified with a smile in federal court this week. “I’m a gun collector.”

The feds might normally be delighted to hear a defendant admit to selling up to 50 pounds of marijuana a week.

Lewisbey isn’t facing drug charges, though — he’s accused of making a small fortune by illegally supplying the guns that fuel Chicago’s deadly gang violence.  And he hopes his unusual trust-me-I’m-a-drug-dealer defense will allow him to walk free at the end of his jury trial.

Prosecutors say he took advantage of Indiana’s lax gun laws to buy duffel bags full of guns that he later sold in some of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods.

Private sales between collectors in Indiana don’t require a background check, a waiting period, or paperwork — making gun shows there attractive to criminals looking to get around Illinois’ stricter gun control, authorities say.

Cellphone records from a weekend in April 2010 show Lewisbey making multiple trips back and forth between gun shows in Indiana and Chicago, where prosecutors say he and an accomplice made $38,000 selling more than 40 guns.

But Lewisbey, who spent Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday on the stand, said he only bought guns “to enhance my personal collection” and as a favor to an old pal, because he knew how to get a good deal.

“I can’t even remember all the guns I have,” he said.

He testified that he often traveled to homes in South Holland and Indiana from Texas, where he was studying, to sell drugs, not guns.

A series of his coded Facebook chats, text massages, rap lyrics and iPhone memos, which the government says describe his illegal gun business, actually refer to marijuana sales, he said.

In one message, for example, a potential customer asked for “toys” for a motorcycle gang member who was in trouble. Prosecutors allege that was a clear reference to a gun, but Lewisbey said it was a reference to “Girl Scout Toys” — a popular strain of marijuana.

He said he enjoyed hunting and hoped for a career in hotel management.

That set up a heated exchange with assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Parente.

“Let me get this straight,” Parente began his cross-examination of Lewisbey. “You’re a drug-dealing gun collector who enjoys hunting with your family, who likes living in multiple states and who has an interest in hotel management?”

“Yes,” Lewisbey replied.

Lewisbey later testified that he had buried most of his money at secret locations.

“Like a pirate?” Parente asked.



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diy glitter tattoo stencils | Gangs use time in Jail as a school!

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For gang members, jail is a school, a place to learn gang history, politics and economics. But in this school, if they are disciplined, they graduate to a higher status among their peers.

In jail, young gang members also are educated in how to make weapons, what to expect if they are destined for prison and how to communicate with fellow gang members both within the same jail and in prisons around the state.

Jail is where many orders from so-called shot callers are carried out, like assaults or killings of rival gang members or members within the gang who have defected.

The Stanislaus County Jails majority gang, Norteño, is even referred to a
s the junior varsity of the Nuestra Familia, a prison gang with which it is associated.

While many members grow up in neighborhoods considered turf by gangs, it isnt until they go to jail that most choose a side — northerner or southerner — and truly become affiliated. Upon their release, the future crimes they commit are expected to be for the benefit of the gang.

Read the entire story here ....Modbee.com
Source: 

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diy tattoo footswitch | Most Gang Members Use Social Media

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"Activities online are sparking violence offline," said David Pyrooz, the co-author of a study of Internet gang activity published earlier this year. "Thats when it gets real serious."

Some gang members are using online tools to plan crimes, recruit members or challenge and threaten rivals, said Bruce Ferrell, the president of the Nebraska-based Midwest Gang Investigators Association. Many of those kinds of back-and-forth

"dissing" between rival gang members come in the form of rap lyrics that are recorded and posted online, he said.

One such online rap war had a deadly effect in Chicago last fall after someone shot and killed gang-affiliated rapper Joseph Coleman. That prompted several retaliatory killings, police in the city said.

Much of the threatening and harassing words that gang members spew toward one another online may seem trivial, but it can "spark an all-out gang war," said Pyrooz, an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University in Texas.

"What the Internet does is what word of mouth used to do," he said. "It provides them with a wide platform to promote their reputations."

And it is happening in Kansas City, where law enforcement officials have estimated that 2,500 to 3,500 people have been involved in gang activity in recent years.

"They are real savvy with social media," said Ron Hunt, a Kansas City community activist who works with young people seeking to get out of the gang lifestyle.

The study of online gang activity was conducted in five large cities, including St. Louis but not Kansas City. Researchers interviewed nearly 600 people, about two-thirds whom were active or former gang members, Pyrooz said.

Gang members use social media at about an 80 percent rate, which is consistent with the general population, he said.

But gang members engage in "criminal and deviate" behavior online at a higher rate than other people, the study found. Besides the threatening and harassing behavior, the gang members are more likely to do such things as illegally download files, arrange drug sales, sell stolen goods or post and watch videos of street fights.

Nearly 20 percent of the participants in the study said their gangs had their own

websites or social media pages. About one-third of those said the pages were password-protected.

One thing that struck Pyrooz was how technically savvy young gang members were. The "digital divide" that once separated residents of large urban areas from those in more affluent communities has disappeared as a result of handheld technology, he said.

On the streets, gang members go online to monitor the movements of police officers and warn one another or give an "all clear" when officers depart, said Ferrell of the gang investigators association.

Ferrell said one social media phenomenon occurring on the West Coast is "flocking." It is a type of flash mob in which gang members text one another to show up all at once at a specific place to commit a crime. It can involve breaking into a home or stealing from a business.

Officer Steve Edwards of the Overland Park Police Department said gang members have a propensity to post pictures of themselves and their friends online. Sometimes they are pictured holding guns, money or drugs.

"That can help us locate where they are and who they are hanging out with," he said.

With the wide use of social media today, it is imperative that police agencies learn how to employ it effectively, said Lauri Stevens of LAwS Communications, which trains law enforcement officers to effectively use social media.

Beyond using social media to track gang members and their criminal activity, police also must learn how to gather evidence so it can be used to successfully prosecute the criminals, she said.

Stevens said there has been very little legal precedent in that area, particularly when it comes to cell phones and other hand-held devices.

State courts have split on whether police can obtain evidence from cellphones without search warrants.

Lawyers for a California man who was linked to a gang-related shooting by photos police obtained from his cellphone have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a hearing on the issue.

This article originally appeared in The Kansas City Star.

http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Most-Gang-Members-Use-Social-Media-Study-Finds.html

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diy glitter tattoo glue | 1 in 4 Youths with Assault Injury Owns a Gun

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Urban youth who land in the emergency department (ED) from assault-related injuries often own guns and exhibit other risks for further violence, a study showed.

Almost one-quarter of 14- to 24-year-olds treated for assault injuries at one center reported having a gun in the prior 6 months, Patrick Carter, MD, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues found.

Firearm possession was associated with higher odds of having been in a recent serious fight, of using drugs, and of having an aggressive attitude that increases the risk of retaliatory violence, the group reported in the August issue of Pediatrics.

"Future prevention efforts should focus on minimizing illegal firearm access among high-risk youth, nonviolent alternatives to retaliatory violence, and substance use prevention," the researchers concluded.

"Previous research has demonstrated the immediate post-injury time is an ideal time to capitalize on a teachable moment with preventive interventions," they added.

Routine office-based discussion about restricting access to guns whenever seeing a patient with a history of assault-related injury might be worthwhile but is unlikely to really have an impact, Robert Sege, MD, PhD, of Boston Medical Center, suggested in an accompanying editorial that called for more research and federal

action.

"The continued high incidence of firearms deaths in the U.S. is a national disgrace," he wrote. "Despite declining rates over the past decade, firearm injuries remain the second leading cause of death for young Americans, trailing only motor vehicle crashes."

The researchers surveyed 689 14- to 24-year-olds treated at the major Level 1 trauma center in Flint, Mich., for assault-related injuries as part of a larger longitudinal study.

On the computerized screening survey, 23% of the youth reported firearm possession in the prior 6 months, most obtained illegally (83%).

Among those with guns, 42% said they carried it outside the home and 22% had a highly lethal automatic or semiautomatic weapon.

Those two findings together suggest "opportunities for improved law enforcement around firearm diversion and improved policies around weapon access among high-risk youth," the researchers noted.

The most common reason given for having a gun was protection (37%), followed by "holding it for someone" (10%), and because their friends carry guns (9%).

The majority of participants with firearms were seen in the ED due to injuries sustained by their peers (67%); most of the rest had intimate partner-related violence as a cause of injury (15%).

Just 3% had threatened someone with a firearm during the incident that resulted in their injury; 3% of the gun owners also reported having been seen in the ED for mental health reasons within the prior year.

Factors significantly associated with gun possession in the multivariate analysis were:

• Male gender, with an adjusted odds ratio of 2.76
• Higher socioeconomic status, with 51% higher aOR for those not receiving public assistance
• Illicit drug use, with an aOR of 1.63
• Retaliatory attitudes, with an aOR elevated by 58%
• A serious fight within the prior 6 months, with an aOR of 1.73

Race was not a significant factor, but actually trended toward lower odds among African-American youth.

African Americans account for half or more of the population in Flint, which has crime and poverty rates comparable to Detroit and Oakland, Calif.

"It is important to note that few youth were involved in a gang," Carter and colleagues wrote.

Limitations included inability to draw causal connections between attitudes and gun possession, limited generalizability based upon the single urban site and highly diverse population studied, and use of self-reported data.

Sexual assault, child abuse, and suicide ideation or attempts were excluded, which may have underestimated the true rate of firearm possession.

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