July 29--Police Chief Charlie Beck on Wednesday continued the LAPD's efforts to calm concerns over recent gang violence in South L.A., saying recent shootings were related to a longstanding feud between two rival groups -- not to postings on social media.
Fears of increased gang activity intensified across social media sites last weekend after a series of shootings in South L.A. left one man dead and 12 people wounded. One of the most incendiary claims to emerge was that a gang had vowed 100 days of violence, sparking alarming hashtags like #100days100nights and #PrayforLA on Twitter and Instagram.
Beck reiterated Wednesday what LAPD brass has said in recent days: Investigators have not linked the violence to the social media activity. But, the chief said, his detectives were "looking very closely at it."
"There are many, many urban myths and many of them coincide with gang activity," Beck said. "I would hope that this is one of those."
Beck said four of the shootings that occurred Saturday in the LAPD's 77th Street Division -- which covers some of the city's most violent neighborhoods -- were tied to a decades-long rivalry between two gangs. Beck declined to name the gangs he said were involved, but said the recent violence stemmed from a dispute at a funeral.
"Disrespect or physical aggression displayed at funerals often leads to an acceleration of shootings between active street gangs, and that's what this appears to be," he said. "Certainly that is a story as old as gang activity in Los Angeles, and has nothing to do with Facebook."
Beck said investigators were continuing to look into the shootings. He said the LAPD responded to the violence with a "full-court press" by deploying more officers to the area to help prevent retaliatory attacks and putting more detectives on the cases.
The chief said there were signs those efforts were working. The department's 77th Street Division had not seen "unusual levels of gang violence" since Saturday night, he said.
