YouTube isn't just for cute kitten contests, crazed Britney fans, and wise Ninja advisers.
It's also for gangs, who, according to the Boston Globe, have begun posting on the video-sharing site.
Some of the biggest fans of these vids? Cops, unsurprisingly.
They call themselves names like "King Shizz" and "Gun Smoke Poke," and rap on the Internet about blasting their guns, dying young, and killing their rivals. As a loud bass thumps and an unseen keyboard plays an ominous melody, a half-dozen young men on Castlegate Road in Dorchester jostle for the camera's attention. [...]
The three-minute video is one of two posted on the Internet featuring teenagers who say they belong to Castlegate and Morse Street, two notorious Boston gangs whose members often turn up in police reports about shootings around the city. Now, the gangs appear to be staking out new turf with their work, which is appearing on the popular video-sharing website YouTube, alongside videos of celebrities, sports highlights, and amateur pranks.[...]
If any of the men in the video should appear at an arraignment on a weapons charge, police said, they could use the video as evidence of affiliation with a gang.
"I think it's fantastic," said Police Superintendent Daniel Linskey. "If we can play a video for a judge that shows they're involved with criminal activity, that helps us, and bodes well when we go for dangerousness hearings. We like to use these videos to use their own words against them."
Zach Patton -- Executive Editor. Zach has written about a range of topics, including social policy issues and urban planning and design. Originally from Tennessee, he joined GOVERNING as a staff writer in 2004. He received the 2011 Jesse H. Neal Award for Outstanding Journalism
E-mail: zpatton@governing.com 
Written and compiled by staff writers and editors, GOVERNING View is an on-the-ground, and sometimes behind-the-scenes, look at the topics we're covering in print and online. From notes on what's up in statehouses, county courthouses and city halls, to encounters with people, places and things, GOVERNING View is a window into the side of state and local government you don't always see.
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