Ending Flash Mob Violence

Ending Flash Mob Violence: Economically Efficient Legal

Deterrence of Flash Mob Violence Analysis & Suggestions for Advocates & Policymakers

by Noel R. Bagwell, III Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved.

©2012 Noel R. Bagwell, III. All Rights Reserved. 1

Introduction

While mob violence is not an unfamiliar problem, the 21st century has produced a new variation

on this timeless theme by combining traditional mob violence with the elements of a cybercrime

and a conspiracy. Flash mob violence is, therefore, a new type of crime altogether – a “hybrid

cybercrime.” Due to the technical nature of the methodology used by perpetrators of crimes of

violence organized using online social networking services, lawmakers and law enforcement

officers face complex problems when formulating and enforcing laws that efficiently deter flash

mob violence without wasting public resources, and without violating the natural or civil rights

of U.S. citizens.

Flash mob violence begins online, when a flash mob is organized using social media or social

networking services. While many flash mobs are innocuous, others may be organized to create a

diversion while the organizers commit criminal activity. Some flash mobs, including “flash robs”

are organized for the purpose of committing criminal acts that, under the prevailing legal

paradigm in most jurisdictions, are difficult to deter or prosecute. Most flash mob violence

includes a racial or class warfare component that goes largely unreported by the mainstream

media. A clear understanding of this aspect of the phenomenon is, however, essential to

understanding the motivations of participants in flash mob violence.

While no legal solution alone can remedy the problem of flash mob violence, a fair, reasoned

approach to efficiently deterring this kind of violence must include incentives that carry the

weight of criminal sanctions. A thorough examination of precedents created in analogous areas

of the law provides legislators and law enforcement officials a jumping off point from which to

tailor the necessary and proper criminal sanctions targeted to efficiently deter flash mob


violence. Other laws that target online illegal behavior may suggest a framework for addressing

flash mob violence.

Nature and Scope of the Flash Mob Violence Problem

The Government’s Duty to Deter Violence “A government can promote social cooperation and enhance its citizens’ economic welfare

primarily in two ways: (1) by providing people with protection for their lives, liberties, and

properties … and (2) by supplying a few select goods that have unusual characteristics that make

them difficult to provide through markets.” (Gwartney, et al. 2005, 2010) The government’s

primary duty is to protect the lives, liberties, and property of its citizens, and to take measures

necessary and proper to fulfilling those duties. A very real concern is that the government, in

attempting to protect its citizens’ natural rights from criminals who seek to violate the rights of

some citizens will deprive citizens of the very liberty the government exists to safeguard by

restricting liberty in the interests of security. Another concern is that provision of a certain

amount of deterrence of criminal behavior will cost more than the benefit such deterrence will

provide. On one side of the scales of justice rest the costs – both social and economic – of flash

mob violence and on the other side are liberty and efficiency. The fulcrum is a package of legal

and economic remedies that efficiently deter flash mob violence without violating the natural and

civil liberties of citizens. The task of finding the constitutionally permissible and economically

viable balance of that fulcrum is a complex but not impossible one.


Definition of a flash mob, and how flash mob violence differs from historical kinds mob violence Understanding how to address the problem begins with understanding what the problem is. Flash

mob violence is different from other forms of mob violence, because it is organized using

methods that never existed until quite recently.

“As products of the digital age, flash mobs require the use of e-mail and text

message technology created in the latter part of the 20th century. Every flash mob

begins with an e-mail announcing the date and time of occurrence, along with

either a set of instructions for action or the promise of instructions to be delivered

on site. Recipients then forward this e-mail to others in cyberspace through

computers and cell phones, forming the mob (or at least its virtual potential) with

each successive email or text message. Usually, upon arrival, participants are

given instructions on fliers detailing what they should do during the flash mob. As

a rule, the actions or performative [sic] interventions of flash mobs tend to last no

longer than ten minutes. Participants arrive at a site, perform their action(s), and

then leave, often just before the police arrive.” (R. A. Walker 2011)

The flash mob phenomenon emerged around 2003, and has since been a mostly innocuous

phenomenon involving nearly-spontaneous displays of frivolity or artistic expression. (Staff, The

Local 2009) (Zwiefelhofer 2011) More recently, however, criminals have begun using the

methods used to organize flash mobs with the clear intent to organize robberies and other acts of

violence. ("Andrew" 2011) Because of the flash mobs’ ability to rapidly organize and disperse,

law enforcement officials are presented with the challenge of trying to quickly capture

participants before the flash mob has a chance to disperse, or track them down after it has

dispersed – challenges that are problematic to say the least.


The scope of flash mob violence, and its potential to destabilize society Current laws are ineffective at prosecuting flash mob violence, because if they were effective the

trend would not be rising as it is. And it is rising. According to violentflashmobs.com, the only

website that is tracking the trend at a macro level, the number of violent flash mobs has exploded

this year. Alexander Baron, from Digital Journal, interviewed “the webmaster of the Violent

Flash Mobs database, who wishes to be known only as Andrew.” (Baron 2011)

In that interview, Andrew said,

“I haven’t been on the receiving end of a flash mob, although I knew J.B.

Hehman, who was chased to his death by a group of teens trying to rob him. I was

inspired to put together the website in late June 2011 after reading about yet

another mob style crime taking place. It seemed like they were happening every

other day and I was curious exactly how many of these events had occurred.

Although there’s greater awareness of the trend in recent months, the media

had been reporting on these events as one-offs and not reporting on what was

quite obvious - that these incidents were happening more frequently across the

country and that in most instances, the victims were completely innocent and the

attacks were unprovoked.” (Emphasis mine) (Baron 2011)

On August 9, 2011, Brenda Elliot of Klein Online wrote:

“[violentflashmobs.com] is enlightening. We find only one such instance cited for

2002, none in 2003 or 2004, only one each in 2005 and 2006, and two in 2007.

There were eight incidents in 2008 prior to the presidential election and none

cited in 2008 after it. These were followed by a lull in activity until May 2009,

after the Obama inauguration. In 2009 there were nine incidents: three in May,

two in July, one in August, one in September, and two in December.

The website reveals the numbers multipying [sic] in 2010, with twenty-four

incidents on the list. Two to three incidents happened per month.


This is nothing, however, compared to the list of SEVENTY incidents that have

happened in a little over seven months in 2011, the majority of which occurred

April through July. In the first week of August there have been three incidents.

There were eighteen in July, twenty-three in June, six in May, nine in April, one

in March, four in February, and six in January.” (Elliott 2011)

Furthermore, the list on violentflashmobs.com grew substantially between August, 2011 and

early November, 2011. ("Andrew" 2011) This phenomenon is still in the early stages of its

development, but we are already seeing the enormous potential for violence that exists, if the

government cannot effectively manage the threat presented by flash mob violence to the natural

and civil rights of law-abiding citizens. While the violence across America has spread and

continues to rise, international protests using similar methodologies spread across the Middle

East, earlier this year. The so-called “Arab Spring” protests resulted in a civil war in Libya;

revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt; and civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria, Arabia, Sudan, and

Western Sahara. Internet-based social media is what has made all of these uprisings possible.

“During the heady days of protests in Cairo, one activist succinctly tweeted about

why digital media was so important to the organization of political unrest. ‘We

use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell

the world,’ she said. The protesters openly acknowledge the role of digital media

as a fundamental infrastructure for their work. Moammar Gadhafi’s former aides

… advised him to submit his resignation through Twitter.” (Howard 2011)

Little reason appears to exist to believe that civil uprisings – even attempted revolutions – could

not materialize in the United States as well, using the same organizational methodologies

employed by organizers of flash mobs and the Arabic rebellions. Quite to the contrary, the recent

Occupy Wall Street protests – and the many, smaller “solidarity” protests that have sprung up

around the country – have been both compared to the Arab Spring and characterized as, perhaps,


part of a larger, global “Arab Spring”-like global trend towards a paradigm shift in the balance of

global political and economic power. (Fasan 2011) (Brinkley 2011) (Apps 2011)

(WOODTV.com 2011) (Jamshidi 2011)

For a case in point, one need look no further than to the position taken by Van Jones, former

“Green Jobs czar” for the Obama Administration and founder and leader of the communist

revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement

(STORM), appeared on MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.” In the segment

featuring Jones, he connects the Occupy Wall Street protests with something he calls the

American Dream Movement and the Arab Spring as the following excerpt from the transcript

reveals:

VAN JONES, FORMER OBAMA GREEN JOBS ADVISER: Glad to be here.

O`DONNELL: Van, tell us what you`re doing next week in Washington and tell us how you can somehow drive Washington to take the action on jobs that Jay Carney was talking about.

JONES: Well, first of all, I think everybody should hold onto your seats. October is going to be the turning point when it comes to the progressive fight back. You can see it coming. When Warren Buffett comes out and says, look, we`ve got to do something to raise taxes and do better by America, and you`ve got these young kids who are going out there on Wall Street.

…

We are a part of something called the American Dream Movement. We`re having a huge summit on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Come -- you can go to rebuildthedream.com and find out more about it.

We are going to build a progressive counterbalance to the Tea Party. Eighty percent of Americans agree with everything you say on this show but we have no voice. We know that jobs are more important, and this phony, made-up deficit stuff they talk about. We know that people who have done well in America should do well by America and start paying America back in the form of more fair taxes.

People who benefited from the bailouts and from the tax breaks should start paying America back. They`re doing great.


Everybody else is suffering. That`s 80 percent of the majority.

We`re going to now have a voice.

You`re going to see an American fall, an American autumn, just like we saw the Arab spring. You can see it right now with these young people on Wall Street. Hold onto your hats. We`re going to have an October offensive to take back the American Dream and to rescue America`s middle class. (Roll Call, Inc., MSNBC, LexisNexis 2011) (Staff, RealClearPolitics.com 2011)

The Occupy Wall Street protests have, so far, been relatively tame, especially in comparison to

the “Arab Spring.” The protests have not been entirely free from violence, however, as protesters

have clashed with police as they marched in Manhattan on October 14, 2011, and at least fifteen

protesters were arrested after they got into fights with police over a planned ‘eviction’ of the

protesters from Zucottti park which was actually postponed after “a last-minute standoff with

authorities.” (Duell 2011) “Police say the protesters were throwing bottles and bags of garbage at

officers, triggering the police response … Police say they were trying to control the situation

when it got out of hand.” (CBSNewYork 2011) Violence spread to Rome, the following day, as

“[h]undreds of thousands of people around the world marched on dozens of cities on Saturday,

joining the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations,” and “global interest in the Zuccotti Park

encampment (and its imitators nationwide)” is credited for having “spurred the October 15

marches.” (Read 2011)

Whether organizers limit the scope of their violence to something smaller scale – like “flash

robbing” a convenience store1 or vandalizing a department store as part of a violent flash mob2 –

or choose to expand the violence to something larger – say, organizing dozens of young, black

hooligans to target white attendees of the Wisconsin State Fair3

1 (McCarren 2011)

– or to foment discontent at a

national or international level, generating protests that could lead to civil unrest, revolution, or

2 (Sheridan 2010) 3 (Walker, Johnson and Schossow 2011) (The WTMJ News Team 2011)


even civil war, the fundamental methodology is the same. The abuse of social media technology

is at the center of all of this violent crime.

Wildings

The Violent Flash Mob website tracks “wildings” as well as flash mobs, and the two kinds of

events are often indistinguishable, except that flash mob violence is organized using social media

– like Twitter, Blackberry Messenger, Facebook, text messaging, or email – whereas wildings

involves roving bands of marauders who impulsively target whomever may come across their

path provide an appealing target to the barbaric savages who then mercilessly and viciously beat,

rob, and sometimes rape their victims. (Pitt 1989) (Roeper 2011) ("Andrew" 2011)

Despite that some of the events discussed in the following section may be wildings, rather than

instances of “flash mob violence,” per se, in 2011 nearly everyone has a cell phone, and nearly

everyone uses text messaging. Rare is the young person with a cell phone – even in poor

neighborhoods – who doesn’t use it to post status updates and pictures to social media services.

Therefore, even though some events may be “wildings” rather than instances of “flash mob

violence” both wildings and violent flash mobs are part of the same larger overall trend of black-

on-non-black violence that has become a growing trend since at least 2009.

Even “wilding” events – though technically distinguishable from instances of “flash mob

violence” – are likely organized using some kind of social media, even if it’s just text messaging.

“Flash mobbers,” after all, usually organize their events, to a degree, using social media (e.g.,

sending out a message via e-mail or Twitter for participants to assemble at X place at Y time),


and then send out another tweet4

For the foregoing reasons, descriptions of some wildings are included in the following section

regarding the racial component of violent flash mobs. Also, that both kinds of events are tracked

in the Violent Flash Mobs database is noteworthy. ("Andrew" 2011) Because both wildings and

violent flash mobs are both part of the same trend of racially motivated violence, it is appropriate

to include both types of events in this discussion.

or text message to attendees on-site with last minute

instructions. When attendees to a flash mob first show up, they very well may not know exactly

what’s going on until they receive on-site instructions. But Twitter is known as the “SMS of the

internet,” and is extremely similar both in form and function to SMS messaging (i.e., “text

messaging”). (D'Monte 2009) Organizing via text message is organizing via text message,

whether it’s Twitter or SMS messaging, and while in 1989 wildings may not have been

“organized,” using text messages, but in 2011, it’s hard to imagine that participants in wildings

aren’t recruited using text messages or social media, though such methods are certainly not the

only means by which participants can be or are recruited.

The Race Component of Flash Mob Violence Acknowledging the racial component of flash mob violence is not politically correct. For that

reason, the media has largely chosen to ignore it, making it harder for the public to understand

the social, economic, and political problems that produce flash mob violence. (Bennett, Media

Stifling Racial Violence Coverage 2011) (Ahlert 2011) Nevertheless, it is an inescapably

important consideration in any intellectually credible analysis of this phenomenon. Most news

stories about flash mob violence describe the perpetrators of flash mob violence crimes using

vague terms like “youths,” “teens,” “young people,” and the like, never mentioning the ethnicity

4 A “tweet” is a message sent on Twitter. (Twitter 2011)


of the people involved. Most of the flash mob violence, even excluding the “flash robs,” is black-

on-white violence, and in many cases, strong evidence points to a race-based motivation for

black youths to attack white people. The media’s refusal to report on this widespread,

increasingly frequent black-on-white violence organized using social media is disturbing,

because it is unthinkable to imagine that if these violent crimes were committed by white people

against black people the media would be not outraged, and coverage would be anything short of

extensive.

Asked if he believes that “racial content and at times the apparent racial motivation of the attacks

is the reason they have received so little mainstream media coverage,” “Andrew” of

violentflashmobs.com says, “Yes. There’s been more mainstream media coverage in the last

month or two,” referring to August and September, 2011, “but there’s always a reluctance to

report crime trends when blacks are the perpetrators and non-blacks are the victims.” (Baron

2011)

John Kass of the Chicago Tribune aptly describes the situation:

“…we’re experienced in dealing with black victims of white racists. We’re so

well-trained that we’ll rush out and grab the usual suspects, including race-card-

playing clergy, and ask them to put it in context. But when black teens go after

whites and Asians in a plush neighborhood, it creates headaches, in the media and

in politics.” (Kass 2011)

And the media is not bashful about their refusal to report on the race of the thugs who use social

media to organize vicious, savage, racially-motivated attacks against their fellow citizens:

“For those who care about language and the truth, Mary Schmich of the Chicago

Tribune has done a great service. She openly admits that her newspaper refuses to


report the race of violent criminals responsible for an outbreak of racial mob

violence in Chicago, which mirrors similar violence around the country.”

(Bennett, Media Stifling Racial Violence Coverage 2011) (Schmich 2011) (WLS

Radio 890AM and WLSAM.com 2011) (Geary 2011)

The editor of the Chicago Tribune, Gerould W. Kern says, “We do not reference race unless it is

a fact that is central to telling the story.” (Kern 2011) (Bennett, Media Stifling Racial Violence

Coverage 2011) That excuse does not seem to apply, however, to many if not most of the

vicious, brutal attacks in Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, at the Wisconsin State Fair, and in

many other areas where flash mob violence has cropped up around the country. Even if we

control for mere “flash robs,” where no individuals are specifically targeted, where the flash

robbers are merely out to plunder, there still remains a growing trend of racially-motivated,

savage, brutal attacks perpetrated by black Americans against white Americans all around the

country. This is a fact that is central to telling the story of flash mobs, and it is important for an

economic analysis of the problem, because a motivation for crime based on racial hatred is a

significant discounting factor in the cost-benefit analysis criminals ostensibly perform when

deciding whether to engage in flash mob violence or other violent crime.

If race is a factor in the criminals’ decision making processes, that is a game changer, and it puts

issues like racial profiling into play in the debate over how authorities should address the

problem. Furthermore, the race factor can potentially discount the value of reducing the

unemployment rate, for example, or other economic incentive-based solutions. If racial hatred is

a motivating factor for those participating in violent flash mobs, simply adjusting their economic

incentives without addressing the issue of why members of one ethnic group hate another group

enough to violently attack them is going to suffer from a substantial efficiency deficit.


There can be little doubt that race is a motivating force behind many, perhaps most, of the

violent flash mobs.

In describing the violence at the Wisconsin State Fair, in August, 2011, witnesses’ accounts

indicate that the attacks there were specifically targeted at white people, and were carried out by

“dozens to hundreds of young black people” who were “beating white people as they left [sic]

State Fair.” (The WTMJ News Team 2011)

"’It looked like they were just going after white guys, white people,’ said Norb

Roffers of Wind Lake in an interview with Newsradio 620 WTMJ. …

‘They were attacking everybody for no reason whatsoever.’

‘It was 100% racial,’ claimed Eric, an Iraq war veteran from St. Francis who says

young people beat on his car.

‘I had a black couple on my right side, and these black kids were running in

between all the cars, and they were pounding on my doors and trying to open up

doors on my car, and they didn't do one thing to this black couple that was in this

car next to us. They just kept walking right past their car. They were looking in

everybody's windshield as they were running by, seeing who was white and who

was black. Guarantee it.’" …

Roffers claimed that as he left the state fair with his wife, crowds near that

entrance were large...

"As we got closer to the street, we looked up the road, and we saw a quite a bit of

commotion going on and there was a guy laying in the road ... He wasn't even

moving. Finally a car pulled up. They stopped right next to the guy, and it

looked like someone was going to help him. We were kind of stuck, because we

couldn't cross. Traffic was going through. Young black men running around,

beating on people, and we were like 'Let's get the heck out of here.' The light


turned, and I got attacked from behind. I just got hit in the back of the head real

hard. I'm like, 'What the heck is going on here?' I heard my bell ring."

Roffers further described what witnesses said happened to the man who was lying

in the street.

"People were saying he was on a bike. They tore him off his bike and beat on

him. We were walking to the west on Schlinger. I was watching behind me a lot

more diligently, making sure there wasn't anybody coming to get us anymore."

Eugene Kane, a black opinion columnist for the Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin wrote

after the incident:

“According to reports, it was similar to what happened in Riverwest last month,

but on a much more brutal - and scarier - scale.

When people start reporting they were being beaten by black people for no other

reason than being white people at the State Fair, that's pretty disturbing.

It's also thuggish and disgusting.” (Kane 2011)

Kane was referring to the barbaric beating of a white girl at Kilbourn Reservoir Park during the

2011 Fourth of July weekend. The Journal Sentinel reported that Shaina Perry was punched in

her face, her backpack with her asthma inhaler was stolen along with her debit card and mobile

phone, and then she was mocked by her attackers.

“They just said ‘Oh, white girl bleeds a lot,’” said Perry.

…

Perry was among several who were injured by a mob they said beat and robbed

them and threw full beer bottles while making racial taunts. The injured people

were white; the attackers were African-American, witnesses said.

…


Nearby, around twenty friends from the Riverwest neighborhood were watching fireworks, when

they were attacked by what eleven witnesses indicate was group of black youths. One witness

saw his friend fall to the ground after being hit in the temple.

“Within 30 seconds to a minute, bottles were flying and people started getting

punched. I was in shock. I thought, ‘Really? Is this really happening?’ I was on

the ground, people were trying to get into my pockets, I could feel their hands but

I held on to my cellphone and my wallet,” said Zajackowski, a census worker.

Emily Mowrer, 27, was not hurt but saw her friends beaten and punched and full

beer bottles thrown at them. Her boyfriend was punched. She saw Perry lying

with blood on her face, not moving. She called 911 on her cellphone.

…

”It didn’t seem like it was a mugging – it seemed like an attack. Like they weren’t

after anything – just violence.”

Andy Lange, 29, a social worker who has lived in Riverwest for 10 years, said

one of his friends was hit in the head with a bottle and needed staples to close the

wound. Lange said he was struck in the face and didn’t even see who hit him.

Perry needed three stitches to close a cut above her eye. She said she saw a friend

getting kicked and when she walked up to ask what was happening, a man

punched her in the face. ("velvethammer" 2011) (Jones 2011) (GCrowdy;

YouTube 2011)

One of the more disturbing elements of this account is the police response, or, more

appropriately, the lack thereof.

“You’ve got 20-plus people giving eyewitness accounts. I’m very surprised that

[the police] said it wasn’t a mob,” said Mowrer.

…

“About 20 of us stayed to give statements and make sure everyone was accounted


for. The police wouldn’t listen to us, they wouldn’t take our names or statements.

They told us to leave. It was completely infuriating,” Bublitz said.

("velvethammer" 2011) (Jones 2011) (GCrowdy; YouTube 2011)

The incidents in Wisconsin are hardly isolated. In Cleveland Heights, Ohio – a “city, known for

its liberalism, tolerance and racial diversity” – a street fair was disrupted by “large groups of the

teens rushed through the crowd, pushing people over and sparking fights.” (O'Malley 2011)

Additionally, according to reports, “[t]he upheaval spilled into nearby upper-middle-class,

mostly white neighborhoods. Neighbors said they witnessed large groups of young black men

walking in the middle of quiet, tree-lined side streets shouting profanities and racial epithets.” Id.

According to that same report, this incident also follows another incident that occurred earlier, on

June 18, 2011. In that incident, “[t]he county prosecutor's office said Michael Madison of

Cleveland Heights, along with his wife and two friends, were leaving Anatolia Cafe when

Madison was jumped by a black teenager who was backed by other teens. The teenager, a

juvenile, called to his friends, ‘Let's do them.’”

Many other incidents like these have become disturbingly common. There are too many to

exhaustively list here, but consider these few examples:

• “In Denver, couples leaving restaurants were being attacked by a group of black

men with baseball bats.” (Bennett, "Flash Mob" Racial Violence 2011) (Gathright 2011)

• “A young white man named Carter Strange had his skull fractured by a mob in South

Carolina. He was attacked at random while jogging.” (Bennett, "Flash Mob" Racial

Violence 2011) (Talarico 2911)

• “A young white man named David Strucinski was beaten into a coma by a mob in

Bayonne, NJ.” (Bennett, "Flash Mob" Racial Violence 2011) (The Jersey Journal 2011)


• “Anna Taylor, Emily Guendelsberger, and Thomas Fitzgerald were beaten to the ground

and stomped in separate Philadelphia flash mobs.” (Bennett, "Flash Mob" Racial

Violence 2011) (Lubrano 2010) (Farr 2011) (Polaneczky 2011)

• “’Every weekend in July,’ according to local news, ‘police have battled large, flash-mob

beatings and vandalism’ in Greensboro, NC.” (Bennett, "Flash Mob" Racial Violence

2011) (Geary 2011)

John T. Bennett, an Emory University law student, has written fairly extensively on the racial

component of wildings and violent flash mobs. Mr. Bennett even filed a Freedom of Information

Act (FOIA) request to “ascertain the facts about the racial identity of one of the victims of these

attacks.” (Bennett, "Flash Mob" Racial Violence 2011) According to Bennett, “[t]he media

concealed the identity of the white victim apparently because of … racial sensitivity.” Id. In a

special project of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, Bennett writes:

“The most publicized flash mob attacks took place when five non-blacks were

attacked in one hour by a pack of 20 teens on the North Side. As of June 13,

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that over 30 people had been arrested in the various

mob attacks that month. Then, on June 14, the white 15-year-old was robbed at

gunpoint by a group of blacks.”

“Not far away, the flash mobs could have reached an awful crescendo in Peoria.

On June 24, a mob of at least 50 blacks [sic] teens were stopping traffic in the

street, and ‘running wildly through yards and porches’ in a quiet suburban

neighborhood in what one witness described as a ‘show of force.’ Another

witness says that a black teen yelled out, ‘We’re gonna kill all the white people.

This is our neighborhood.’ In this context, a reasonable reporter would be acting

appropriately to include the race of victims and attackers in group attacks.”

(Emphasis mine) (Bennett, "Flash Mob" Racial Violence 2011) (Janssen and

Rozek 2011) (WLS Radio 890AM and WLSAM.com 2011) (SUN-TIMES


MEDIA WIRE 2011) (Boren, Mob incident not motivated by race, authorities say

2011) (Boren, Some claim reports of racist Peoria mob are exaggerated 2011)

In an incident in Peoria, Illinois, in October, 2011, a Meals on Wheels volunteer delivery driver

was making a delivery to a home when a group of “15 teens – 13 males and two females –

walking down the middle of the road” refused to yield to his vehicle, followed him to “the house

where he had to make the meal delivery,” and as he got out to deliver the food to the door, “he

was verbally attacked, according to a report on the incident. One teen called him ‘honky,’ while

another threatened to ‘kick his white ass.’” (Buedel 2011) But the assault did not end with mere

verbal abuse. “As the volunteer driver returned to his car to leave, the teens surrounded his car

and pounded on it.” (Buedel 2011) In an apparently related incident, “A woman … encountered

a group of more than 40 teens,” who “surrounded the 21-year-old woman’s car and began

beating on it with an object that shattered her driver’s side window. One of the boys involved in

the attack also pointed a handgun in the direction of a passenger in the car, but didn’t make any

threats or attempt to open the door.” (Buedel 2011) Police indicated that both groups had

recently left house parties just before each incident, and asserted that groups were not “getting

together to wreak havoc on the community.” (Buedel 2011) These incidents, however, fit the

definition of wilding events.

Whether the attacks are wildings or violent flash mobs, several common threads seem emerge

from the many eyewitness accounts of these incidents. One thread is the specific targeting of

non-blacks by blacks in acts of feral aggression for no apparent reason. Another is that the events

happen quickly, seemingly spontaneously, and are usually described, later, as “flash mobs,”

perhaps because of how quickly the participants in the attacks seem to coalesce on their victims

and then quickly disperse after committing unspeakable acts of savagery more than because of


the actual methodology used. Many attacks described as violent “flash mobs,” seem to actually

be wildings, though the ubiquitous use of social media, including text messaging by today’s

youth creates substantial overlap that may render the distinction moot.

The racial component of the violent “flash mob” or wilding events makes these events even more

frightening, because the problem might be more easily addressed if the events were solely the

result of “chronic political neglect,” as some apologists for this sort of behavior claim. (Watkins

2011) Similarly, if the root cause of violent flash mobs or wildings was economic, hope might be

discovered in adjusting economic incentives by focusing on initiatives to lower the

unemployment rate, for example. If, however, the fundamental motivation for these savage,

brutal attacks is a deep racial hatred for non-blacks, the violent flash mob problem will be much

harder to address, because even if political and economic circumstances improve, without a

cultural paradigm shift, the fundamental motivation will remain, waiting to flare up as soon as

the conditions are ripe again.

Proposed Solutions for Deterring and Preventing Flash Mob Violence

The “Solutions” that have been tried The accepted wisdom is that “[a] person commits a crime because the expected benefits exceed

the expected costs.” (Posner 2007) Assuming that premise is true, the question of how to adjust

the incentives involved in the equation to make the costs of flash mob violence exceed the

benefits for criminals without raising the cost of deterrence above the level of benefit for

taxpayers. Before the issues of costs and benefits can be addressed, however, the issue of what

sort of deterrence options are available must be considered.


The city of Braunschweig, Germany has banned flash mobs altogether. (The Local 2009) Such

an approach might not work in the United States, because, according to the Supreme Court’s

ruling in NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), freedom of association is a fundamental right

protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Article 8, section 2 of the

Grundgesetz, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, allows for the right to

assemble peacefully to “be restricted by or pursuant to a law,” “in the case of outdoor

assemblies,” whereas the U.S. Constitution does not provide for such limitation.

There is a fine line between protecting the public from potential flash mob violence and stifling

legal dissent. Authorities in the United States are, nevertheless, “looking for ways to criminalize

the use of social media to organize criminal behavior.” (Faturechi and Blankstein 2011) Whether

such laws would be constitutional is an interesting question, but one which is beyond the scope

of this paper.

While there have been no significant attempts to ban flash mobs outright in the United States,

cities like Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Cleveland are contemplating their options. (Faturechi

and Blankstein 2011) “Those involved in the looting and civil unrest around London used

BlackBerry messages to organize, leading British Prime Minister David Cameron to suggest

shutting down access to social media for anyone suspected of using it for criminal activity.” Id.

The City Council in Cleveland passed “an ordinance that would have made it illegal to use social

media to organize a violent and disorderly flash mob,” but the measure was vetoed by the mayor.

Id.

Police in Stafford County, Virginia, are trying to fight fire with fire. Authorities there “have

launched a new initiative to stop flash mob robberies before they ever begin,” and “have asked


anyone who is sent a message about forming or being a part of a flash mob robbery to call

Stafford County Crime Solvers … or send a text tip to [a number designated for that purpose].”

(PotomacLocal.com 2011) This approach might be an effective way to address the problem, if

there are attractive incentives to inform the police about an impending flash mob robbery.

Mobile phone and mobile internet service was shut down in a Bay Area Rapid Transit station in

San Francisco after authorities there were “[f]aced with a large demonstration on a subway

platform announced by social media to protest the police shooting of a knife-wielding man.” Id.

The officials in the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District may have borrowed the idea of

shutting down mobile phone and mobile internet service from several of the governments trying

to quell the Arab Spring protests, earlier in the year. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who

stepped down on February 11, 2011, shut down cell-phone and internet services in an attempt to

control protesters in Tahrir Square, an action for which Mubarak and other officials were later

fined about $91 million by an Egyptian judge. (Hennessy-Fiske and Hassan 2011)

The New York Police Department has a task force that monitors Facebook and other social

media services to try to identify and locate criminal suspects. (Timpane 2011) (Bickel and

Spence 2011) Most police departments don’t have the resources to create a Social Media Unit to

“patrol the internet,” so to speak. The apparent consensus among law enforcement is that “the

most common strategy to fight the flash mob problem has been the use of curfews and an

increased police presence in vulnerable parts of the community.” (Bickel and Spence 2011)

(Jonsson 2011) After the “weekend shooting of three teenagers at a large late-night ‘flash mob’

gathering,” Kansas City authorities passed an ordinance setting curfews “as early as 9 p.m. for

people under age 18.” (Murphy 2011)


In Philadelphia, the Mayor Michael Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey have taken

“a coordinated response to the problem, which involves law enforcement measures, social

responses and neighborhood outreach.” (Kane 2011) The Philadelphia approach is holistic, but,

where the Cleveland approach focuses on attaching additional punishment for current crimes, the

Philadelphia approach has a heavy emphasis on using police tactics to tighten meaningful

restrictions on likely offenders at the street level. “Nutter said he would increase police street

patrols and enforce curfews for young people … The city is taking the flash mobs seriously,

particularly the troubling racial dynamic that makes whites most vulnerable to the attacks.” Id.

“Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety, says the push involves a positive effort ‘to

reach some of these kids through the very media they use, through Facebook and Twitter, to win

the hearts and minds of these kids.’” (Timpane 2011)

On June 23, 2011, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, about 40 black5

5 There is security camera footage of the “flash robbery” on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLkkjN44YOU) as well as on the website of the local fox affiliate (MyFoxPhilly.com 2011) both of which clearly show the thieves involved.

“young people stormed into a

suburban department store … and stole thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.”

(MyFoxPhilly.com 2011) All of the young people the police captured were from West

Philadelphia. Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said the young people planned earlier in

the day to ride the train to Upper Darby and rob the store. Chitwood said, according to local

news, “although the kids received citations for retail theft … he would like to see the parents

charged with a crime.” Id. (citing video on the webpage) Police in Upper Darby, following the

attack, have expressed concerns about the fact that more private citizens are thinking about

arming themselves with guns for self-defense. (MyFoxPhilly.com 2011) Police Captain George

Rhoades is concerned that “flash mob children could be dead,” as a consequence of attacking


someone who might then exercise their legal right to defend themselves with a concealed

firearm. Id. “Fox 29 News spoke with a number of private citizens … who say they used to keep

their gun only inside their home, but now they are strapped every day, just about everywhere

they go.” Id.

While Captain Rhoades may have some legitimate concerns that an unfortunate altercation might

occur, resulting in an adult killing a juvenile attacker with a concealed firearm in self-defense,

the private reaction is noteworthy. It is hard to imagine that cost of issuing concealed carry

permits to private citizens who can then take responsibility for more of their own protection

could be greater than the costs of more police patrols, and tighter enforcement of curfews. Not

only does issuing concealed carry permits cost less than paying more officers to patrol, evidence

suggests “states that allow registered citizens to carry concealed weapons have lower crime rates

than those that don’t.” (Lampo 2000) Common sense dictates that the correlation between

allowing private citizens to carry concealed weapons and low crime rates exists because the

expected cost to a criminal of committing a crime rise when criminals consider that their

potential victim might be carrying a concealed firearm with which they are prepared to defend

themselves.

The racial component of many flash mob violence attacks may also justify invoking State or

Federal “hate-crimes” statutory law to prosecute perpetrators of racially-motivated violence

organized using social media. Police in Wisconsin, for example, reportedly sought to file “hate-

crimes charges against” at least one “black teenager who confessed that race hatred motivated his

attacks on whites at the Wisconsin State Fair on August 4.” Police departments may need to start

filing hate-crimes charges against perpetrators of black-on-white flash mob violence as a matter

of course. The charges may not always “stick,” but filing hate-crimes charges may be the only


way to get the media to acknowledge the racial element of many of these attacks, because the

racial composition of violent flash mobs “has been determinedly ignored by the mainstream

media.” (Ahlert 2011) (Bennett, Media Stifling Racial Violence Coverage 2011)

Around the country and around the world, various jurisdictions have been making an effort,

within the legal boundaries in which they operate, to address the flash mob violence in a tactful,

and sometimes tactical, way. Tackling the flash mob violence epidemic at the point of

organization, however, seems the most desirable and the most difficult way to try to deter flash

mob violence.

Other Possible Options from Analogous Legal Fields In the United States, some of the lawmakers have passed many laws to protect victims and

potential victims of domestic abuse and sex crimes from abusers and predators regulate the

online activity of convicted sex offenders and those convicted of domestic abuse. Though such

laws are expensive to enforce and raise constitutional concerns as well, they do provide law

enforcement officers with the tools needed to track the online activity of individuals who have

demonstrated a capacity for heinous violent crimes. Moreover, these laws can also be used to

collect evidence if, for example, a register sex offender uses social media in the commission of

another crime.

As authorities search for ways to track and prosecute participants in violent flash mobs, adapting

laws originally designed to regulate the online activity of sex crime offenders and domestic

abusers might offer law enforcement with helpful, if expensive, tools necessary to perform their

duty to protect society from violent flash mobs.


One law that might provide law enforcement with a useful tool to combat violent flash mobs

would be a law similar to the “Amendment to the Committee Print Offered by Ms. DeGette of

Colorado, Records Retention by ISPs, TITLE VI – RECORDS RETENTION,” – a proposed

amendment to the “Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006,” or

COPE Act (hereinafter referred to as the “Records Retention Amendment” or “RRA”). (Tech

Law Journal 2006) The amendment was proposed by U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, former Vice

Chair of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. (Tech Law Journal 2006) The COPE Act was

passed by the full House in June of 2006, but ultimately died in the Senate. (Sourcewatch.org

2009) (Hart and Goo 2006)

The RRA to the Cope Act would have required the FCC to “prescribe regulations requiring each

provider of Internet access services to retain records to permit the identification of subscribers to

such services for appropriate law enforcement purposes … for not less than one year after a

subscriber ceases to subscribe to such services.” The law would have applied to any “services

offered over the Internet,” and would have included “access to proprietary content, information,

and other services as part of a package of services offered to consumers,” but would not have

included “telecommunications services.”

The RRA would have given the FCC broad powers to regulate the retention of huge amounts of

identifying data about subscribers to services offered over the Internet. If users of such services

used (internet-based) social media or even sent a text message via a smartphone to organize a

violent flash mob, ISPs could have been required to keep that data, which could then be

subpoenaed and used in prosecutions against alleged violators of applicable laws. Without a law

like the RRA, ISPs would likely only keep data as long as it is cost-effective to do so, and, if

ISPs do not keep the data, it is, therefore, unavailable for the use of prosecutions.


Rep. DeGette … said at the mark up that "law enforcement authorities cannot find

these perpetrators because they cannot get the records of where they are. Many

witnesses in law enforcement feel that it would be very helpful if the internet

service providers would retain certain records for a year, in case they need to

subpoena those records to help capture people ..."

She continued that "I think that they should just have to preserve identifying

information of people who close down their accounts". She added that ISPs

should not have to provide this information "willy nilly to anybody who asks for

it". But she said that a subpoena should be sufficient. However, she did also

reference "probable cause".

No one else spoke about the amendment at the mark up. (Tech Law Journal 2006)

The “Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act of 2006” was another bill from 2006 that

sought to expand the federal government’s authority over the internet. This bill sought to

“modernize and expand the reporting requirements relating to child pornography, to expand

cooperation in combating child pornography, to require convicted sex offenders to register online

identifiers, and for other purposes.” Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act, S. 4089,

109th Cong. §2 (2006). S. 4089 never became law; the bill was referred to the Committee on the

Judiciary where it died. (GovTrack.us 2006)

According to the text of S. 4089, it would have created a legal obligation for ISPs to report even

apparent child pornography to the CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and

Exploited Children. ISPs would have had an obligation to report information about the involved

individual, including “the Internet identity of any individual who appears to have violated a

Federal law in a manner that violates [18 U.S.C. §§ 2251,6 2251A,7 2252,8 2252A,9

6 Sexual Exploitation of Children

2252B,

7 Selling or Buying of Children 8 Certain Activities Relating to Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of Minors


226010 that involves child pornography; or 1466A11

“Nothing [in the relevant provisions of the act] shall be construed to require an

online service provider to (1) monitor any user, subscriber, or customer of that

provider; (2) the content of any communication of any person described in

paragraph (1); or (3) affirmatively seek facts or circumstances described in [the

aforementioned provisions of Title 18 of the U.S. Code].”

].” Also ISPs would have had to report

information about each incident regarding historical reference, geographic location information,

images of apparent child pornography, company contact information. The National Center for

Missing and Exploited Children would then have been obligated to forward each report to the

Attorney General. ISPs who knowingly and willfully failed to make a report $150,000 for the

first violation, and $300,000 for the second and each subsequent violation. Negligent failure to

report could result in a first fine of up to $50,000, and up to $100,000 for the second and each

subsequent negligent failure to report. The text of the act, however, does provide:

The Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act would also have required an ISP to

“…store any image and other information to the facts or circumstances of any

incident reported under [the aforementioned provisions of Title 18 of the U.S.

Code] for not less than 180 days after the date that the report is transmitted to the

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children through the CyberTipline, or

for such longer period of time as may be requested by the National Center for

Missing and Exploited Children or a law enforcement agency.”

The Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act would have “authorized to be appropriated

to the Attorney General $20,375,000 for grants to Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.”

This funding is mentioned here in only order to raise the issue along with the other material

9 Certain Activities Relating to Material Constituting or Containing Child Pornography 10 Penalties for Registered Sex Offenders 11 Engaging in the Business of Selling or Transferring Obscene Matter


related to the Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act, and is a topic to which this

discussion will later return.

There are other numerous provisions of the Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act

which are omitted here because they are less relevant to this discussion than the included

provisions. There are, however, a few final provisions that should be noted – the provision

regarding the “registration of online identifiers of sex offenders” in Sections 5 and the provision

regarding “removal of offenders from social networking sites in Section 7 of the Act. Section 5

provides penalties for failure by “any person who is required to register under the Sex Offender

Registration and Notification Act” to register online identifiers, including email addresses,

instant message addresses, “or other similar Internet identifier[s] used by that person to

communicate over the Internet to the appropriate official for inclusion in the sex offender

registry, as required under that Act.” Section 7 reads, in relevant part:

“Any online service provider (as that term is defined in section 2257A of title 18,

United States Code, as added by this Act) that is a social networking site shall

implement effective measures to remove any web page hosted by that provider

that is associated with any identifier listed in section 114(a) of the Sex Offender

Registration and Notification Act (42 U.S.C. 16914(a)), as amended by this Act.”

Taken together, the Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act would have placed a

significant burden on ISPs to report incidents of apparent distribution of child pornography or

other apparent violations of federal laws against the sexual or other exploitation of minors.

Furthermore, the Act would have required people registered under the Sex Offender Registration

and Notification Act to provide “the appropriate officials” with substantially all of their online

identifying information. Moreover, it would have effectively banned people registered under the

Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act from social networking sites.


One approach to addressing the violent flash mob problem would be to draft a law not unlike the

Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act targeted to put pressure on those convicted of

violent crimes organized or executed using social media. Such a law would require those

convicted of using social media to commit violent crimes subsequently to register their online

identifiers with a law enforcement agency tasked with tracking the online activity of registrants.

Furthermore, such a law would place a burden on ISPs to report incidents of apparent

organization of violent flash mobs or other activity apparently designed to foment social or civil

unrest using social networking sites. Moreover, such a law would effectively ban from social

networking sites persons convicted of committing violent crimes which were organized using

social media or social networking sites. In other words, the Stop the Online Exploitation of Our

Children Act would be a model for a law with similar provisions that would target those involved

in violent flash mobs, rather than targeting those involved in the (sexual) exploitation of minors

or distribution of child pornography.

If laws passed through Congress and signed into law by the President are not available, one

option that may remain is some kind of administrative agency policing of the violent flash mob

problem in conjunction with the efforts of local law enforcement. The Department of Homeland

Security is “developing guidelines for culling intelligence from social media networks,” in an

effort to “do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity.” (Banda 2011) DHS

Undersecretary Caryn Wagner claims the “protocols are being developed under strict laws meant

to prevent spying on U.S. citizens and protect privacy, including rules dictating the length of

time the information can be stored and differences between domestic and international

surveillance.” When DHS “receives information about a ‘potential threat,’ it will then ask its


contractors to look for relevant search references using ‘open source’ information.” (Watson

2011)

While no new laws would be required for Homeland Security to monitor information publicly

available on social networking sites for trends that might foreshadow large-scale civil unrest like

that which bloomed into the Arab Spring, DHS is likely to focus only on “potential threats” at a

national level. Relatively small scale violent flash mobs – like the ones at the Wisconsin State

Fair and elsewhere around the country – while deeply disturbing and problematic at a local or

even regional level, are hardly a threat to the nation as a whole, except in the aggregate.

Though they are dangerous and unsettling, violent flash mob attacks do not appear at this time to

represent a, organized, coherent, unified attempt to undermine the authority of the United States

government, as did the uprisings in the Middle East against the various governments in the

countries where protests took place in early 2011. For this reason, DHS may from time to time

provide local law enforcement authorities with valuable tools and information that may

occasionally deter or prevent violent flash mob activity, but this is hardly an ideal solution. In

order to deter or prevent an optimal amount of violent flash mob activity, the main thrust of the

effort to do so must be at the local and state levels, and must address the unique challenges

presented by the state’s or municipality’s demographic composition and economic condition. A

federal one-size-fits-all approach is not likely to achieve as effective a result as would efforts

taken by local authorities to solve their own local problems.

As authorities continue to search for the best tools to use to combat the growing flash mob

violence problem, careful consideration should be given to the possibility of passing and using

against participants in violent flash mobs the kinds of laws that have been proposed to curtail the


online activity of sex offenders and distributors of child pornography, as well as laws like the

Patriot Act designed to enable the government to effectively combat terrorism, both foreign and

domestic. Such laws may provide local law enforcement authorities the tools they need to target

flash mob violence and “nip it in the bud” at the point of organization. Additionally, once the

public is made aware that participating in a violent flash mob could result in the restriction of

one’s ability to participate in social media and social networks, such laws may provide

substantial disincentives to do so.

The Costs and Benefits of Deterrence

Costs & Benefits of Crime, Generally Traditionally accepted legal theory indicates that a criminal will commit a crime when the

expected benefits exceed the expected costs. (Posner 2007) “The benefits are the various tangible

(in the case of crimes of pecuniary gain) or intangible (in the case of so-called crimes of passion)

satisfactions from the criminal act.” (Posner 2007) Because racial animosity is an apparent

component of the motivation behind many, if not most, violent flash mobs, for the purposes of

our discussion, it is not unreasonable to assume that both tangible and intangible “benefits” are

derived from “flash robberies,” and intangible “benefits” are derived from violent flash mobs

that do not involve robbery or other theft. “The costs include various out-of-pocket expenses …

the opportunity costs of the criminal’s time, and the expected costs of criminal punishment.

(Posner 2007)

Opportunity Costs & Crime If unemployment is high, a criminal’s opportunity costs might be low. The U.S. Department of

Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the “seasonally adjusted” percentage of “total

unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged


workers” (the “U-4” measure of labor underutilization) was 9.6% in October, 2011, down 0.1%

from one month prior. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Labor 2011) The “total

unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part

time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally

attached to the labor force” (the “U-6” measure of labor underutilization) was 16.2%, down 0.3%

from one month prior. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Labor 2011) The “U-4” rate is

lower than the “U-6” rate, because it does not take into account the people who are under-

employed, because employers cannot afford to hire them full-time. In urban areas, however, the

employment picture is much uglier. In Detroit, in 2009, the city’s unemployment rates12 and

illiteracy rates were more-or-less the same – a little less than 50%.13

Another way to increase the opportunity costs of flash mob violence would be for law

enforcement officials to encourage more private citizens to buy and carry guns, and be prepared

to use them for self-defense. Criminals have more worry about, if they face an armed opponent

than they do if their potential target is unarmed. The cost of criminal activity to criminals goes up

when the criminal has to worry about getting shot. For this reason, the police in Upper Darby,

PA, site of a violent flash mob involving the ransacking of a Sears store by between 35 and 50

black “teens,” have seen an increase in the number of private citizens applying for gun permits.

("Andrew" 2011) (MyFoxPhilly.com 2011) Vigilante justice is not an ideal solution to the

(Detroit Regional

Workforce Fund 2011) (Detroit News 2009) “The opportunity costs of crime could be increased,

and thus the incidence of crime reduced, by reducing unemployment which would increase the

gains from lawful work.” (Posner 2007)

12 The U-6 unemployment rate for Detroit in 2009 was around 45%. 13 “The National Institute for Literacy estimates that 47% of adults … in the City of Detroit are functionally illiterate.


violent flash mob problem, but self-defense is a low-cost alternative to getting robbed by a

roving band of marauding “teens.”

The Costs & Benefits of Legal & Law Enforcement Initiatives to Reduce Violent Flash Mob and Wilding Activity While any comprehensive solution to lowering crime in general, and deterring flash mob

violence in particular would include efforts to reduce the unemployment rate as well as other

measures which would increase the opportunity costs of crime, the focus of the rest of this

discussion will be on increasing the expected costs of criminal punishment with regard to

participation in violent flash mobs and, to a lesser degree, wildings. In order to minimize the

number and frequency of violent flash mobs, our goal will be to analyze which kinds of criminal

sanctions, if any, are likely to achieve “optimal” efficiency with regard to both deterrence and to

economic considerations.

The Challenge of Quantifying the Relevant Data The benefits to society of deterring violent flash mob activity, including wilding activity, are

hard to quantify, because the benefits, as mentioned above, are often intangible as well as

tangible. Moreover, as has been discussed, the incidents are often hard to classify, occur in

diverse and disparate locales, and are often ignored, underreported, or misreported by the media.

This makes the task of saying “X activity will generate Y benefit” extremely difficult, especially

ex ante as authorities are trying to evaluate various potential means by which to deter flash mob

violence. Because the costs violent flash mobs impose on the public are hard to measure, the

benefits of deterrence are similarly difficult to measure.

As was mentioned, above, the Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act would have

“authorized to be appropriated to the Attorney General $20,375,000 for grants to Internet Crimes

Against Children Task Force.” Suppose a law similar in effect (and cost) to the Stop the Online


Exploitation of Our Children Act but focused on curtailing the online activity of those convicted

of using social networking sites to organize or participate in violent flash mobs were passed.

Further suppose a task force created by such a law were endowed with approximately $20.5

million. In order to justify just that one taxpayer-funded expense aimed at deterring flash mob

violence, the task force would have to deter flash mob violence that would have caused at least

$20,500,001 in order to attain satisfactory economical efficiency. In other words, the costs of

each method of deterrence must not exceed the benefit provided in order to attain satisfactory

economical efficiency.

In order to determine whether particular efforts to deter flash mob violence would be

economically efficient further empirical study is required to assess the economic harm wrought

by violent flash mobs and wildings. Such study is a necessary step in the process of finding a

truly efficient means by which to address the problem. The important principle that should guide

the decision-making process in deciding which potential criminal sanctions to implement is that

the cost of the sanctions – and other means of deterrence – should not exceed their benefit to

society.

Without hard numbers with which to work, one can only speculate about the potential efficiency

or inefficiency of any given solution. The question “how much deterrence can we afford,” is not

one that this paper can answer at this time. Certain broad generalizations can be made, however,

which may later prove mistaken or incorrect, but may nevertheless provide a valuable jumping-

off point for further research on this topic.

For one, the cost of monitoring Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites would be

enormous, unless some sort of artificial intelligence or advanced computer search algorithms


were used to navigate, sort, and select relevant data in an attempt to pick up clues to impending

social unrest. The data is just so voluminous, and most of it is so irrelevant to law enforcement,

that picking up on an early warning of a small event like a violent flash mob would be like

looking for a needle in an ocean-sized haystack. The larger the event, however, the more visible

it will be on the social media landscape. Movements as large as “Occupy Wall Street” would,

most likely, show up on the radar of any agency, like the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS),

which might be monitoring social media for signs of civil unrest. It is hard to imagine that the

costs of early detection of these events – either small or large – would not exceed their benefits,

unless the event for which DHS is scanning has a truly revolutionary character.

The U.S. government apparently has concerns in the wake of the recent “Arab Spring” uprisings

in the Middle East that such violence could make its way to our own shores.

In preparation for potential riots inside the United States, the U.S. Army War

College’s Strategic Institute issued a report in November 2008 entitled “Known

Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development.”

(Freier 2008)

The report lays out the strategy for how authorities would respond to “purposeful

domestic resistance,” wherein U.S. troops would be deployed domestically to

counter civil unrest. The report was issued weeks after the onset of the 2008

financial crisis, and included a potential “economic collapse” as one of the

scenarios under which troops would be used inside the U.S. to restore order.

(Watson 2011)

One can only imagine at what cost we would be willing to deter or put down a treasonous or

violent revolution in its infancy.


Though there is significant overlap between the trend in violent flash mob and wilding activity

and the trend of economic and political civil unrest, the focus of this discussion is on smaller-

scale, non-revolutionary events. Considering the various means of addressing the violent flash

mob problem that have been discussed above, it is hard to tell what, if any “solution” is cost-

efficient.

Specific Identifiable Costs & Benefits One thing that does seem to increase the costs to law enforcement is the continued policy of the

media to ignore the racial component of this violence. By allowing a politically correct policy to

unofficially regulate the character of information about these events, the media paints a less-

than-accurate picture of what is going on. This raises the information costs to law enforcement

officers, making it more difficult for them to determine who is likely to participate in a violent

flash mob or wilding and focus their efforts and their resources accordingly. Whenever law

enforcement officers have to, for example, patrol everywhere in order to prevent so-called “racial

profiling,” they inevitably must spend resources to patrol in places where they are not needed –

resources that could be spent patrolling where they are needed.

Banning racial profiling reduces public safety and wastes resources, because it eliminates one

kind of relevant information from the equation that determines how law enforcement resources

will be spent. This may not be true with regard to all law enforcement efforts, but when race is a

factor in the kind of crime law enforcement officers are trying to deter, prevent, or stop, ignoring

that factor can only harm police’s efforts. In order to provide accurate information to the public –

and to law enforcement – the media should, as a matter of policy, report on the race of both

victims and alleged participants in wilding and violent flash mob attacks. The public needs the


truth, even if that truth is not politically correct, or runs contrary the progressive historical

narrative.

“Understanding the contours of group violence is essential to responding

adequately to its different manifestations. In specific circumstances, it may be

necessary to institute coercive measures to deal with groups or situations that have

got out of hand. In the United States, for example, specific city sites (hotspots)

and specific youth group formations … have been targeted for saturation and high

visibility street policing.” (White 2006) (Howell 2000)

Police may, themselves, find that their efforts to reduce wilding and violent flash mob activity

could be enhanced by posting on the police departments’ websites the mug shots and charges

against suspects arrested on suspicion of participating in these crimes. If the police were a

primary source of objective information about these kinds of attacks, the public would have the

information it needs to assemble an accurate picture of these events. Because this is a nationwide

trend of activity, however, nearly all major urban (and suburban) police departments would need

to adopt this – or a similar – policy in order for it to succeed in providing optimal levels of

deterrence.

“Safeguarding and Securing Cyberspace” The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) Fiscal-Year 2012 Budget in Brief proposes to spend

“$24.5 million … to provide high-quality, cost effective virtual cybersecurity education and

training and grow a robust cybersecurity workforce that is able to protect against and respond to

national cybersecurity threats and hazards.” (Homeland Security 2012) Among the other

proposals are proposals to continue “to support cyber investigations conducted through the

Secret Service and ICE, targeting large-scale producers and distributors of child pornography

and preventing attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure through Financial Crimes Task


Forces,” but a budget amount for that item was not given. (Homeland Security 2012)

Additionally, DHS proposes to spend $1.3 million to help DHS coordinate with the DOD and

NSA “to protect against threats to critical civilian and military computer systems and networks,”

as well as “an increase of $18 million for the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative to

support research and development projects focused on strengthening the Nation’s cybersecurity.”

(Homeland Security 2012)

While, as has been stated above, DHS’s main focus is on threats to national security, DHS is

spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars every year on “cybersecurity,” which includes

monitoring of social networking sites, and DHS proposes to spend $276 million through the

Federal Law Enforcement Training Center to provide “funding to train 64,000 individual federal,

state, and local law enforcement personnel.” (Homeland Security 2012) One can imagine that at

least some of that expensive training will include training for how to manage attacks by violent

mobs, including violent flash mobs and wildings.

Passing and enforcing new laws or using agencies like DHS to specifically target, track, and

deter violent flash mob activity would no doubt be a multi-million dollar initiative likely to cost

tens of millions of dollars annually at the federal level. Given what DHS already spends on

“cybersecurity,” increasing that amount to specifically deal with the violent flash mob problem

promises to substantially increase the marginal cost of DHS’s operations to taxpayers.

At the more local level, densely populated urban zones that choose, as the New York Police

Department (NYPD) has done, to form Social Media Units to monitor sites like Facebook and

Twitter for signs of criminal activity, including violent flash mobs, will incur significant costs at

the taxpayers’ expense. No information has been released as of the time of this writing regarding


how much the NYPD plans to spend on their Social Media Unit. Additionally, Social Media

Units may focus on using social media and social networking sites to find evidence police can

use to catch people who have committed crimes, already, rather than on preemptively addressing

conditions that could lead to a violent flash mob.

Adopting Optimal Criminal Sanctions When the police cannot efficiently provide adequate deterrence by increasing patrols, enforcing

curfews and properly targeting their efforts at the groups most likely to participate in violent

flash mobs, specific criminal sanctions, targeted at the kind of criminal behavior in the

deterrence of which the public has a legitimate interest, may provide incentives that will decrease

the number and frequency of violent flash mob attacks.

When considering various criminal sanctions, lawmakers must balance the cost of allowing

violent flash mob activity to occur against the cost of deterring such activity, but no single rule or

law stands out as the most economically efficient. Solutions are likely to continue to reflect the

diversity of demographic and economic conditions of our cities and states. What may work in

Wisconsin may not work in Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, some criminal sanctions may be more

common across jurisdictions than others.

Laws that target repeat offenders, for example, punish “repeat offenders more severely than first

offenders,” and such laws, therefore, raise “the price of crime to people who, judging from their

past behavior, value crime more than other people do. Since the objective is to minimize the

amount of crime, people who value the activity more are charged more to engage in it.” (Posner

2007) Repeat offender laws are common in the U.S., and are even a part of federal sentencing

guidelines. Id. Consequently, many jurisdictions may choose to enact laws that punish more

harshly individuals convicted of violating laws against participating in violent flash mobs or


wildings when those individuals have previously been convicted of violent crimes. Fines and

terms of imprisonment – as well as other penalties, like restricting access to the internet and

social networking sites – may get harsher as an individual racks up convictions on their record.

Many jurisdictions may also find it economically efficient to punish attempts to engage in violent

flash mob activity, because punishing attempts “raises the expected punishment cost for the

completed crime without increasing the severity of the punishment for that crime,” which is

considered an “efficient combination.” (Posner 2007) In order to “give the offender an incentive

to change his mind at the last minute … and … to minimize the costs of error, since there is a

higher probability that the defendant really is harmless than in the case of one who completed the

crime,” attempts to participate in a violent flash mob should “not be punished as severely as the

completed crime.” (Posner 2007)

While most jurisdictions will use the enforcement of laws already on the books to deter, prevent,

and punish participation in violent flash mobs, densely populated urban centers and their

outlying suburban satellites with larger police departments, and (ostensibly) more resources, may

find that they are better served by having laws specifically designed to punish participation in

violent flash mobs and wildings. Because violent flash mobs and wildings occur more frequently

in large, urban (and, increasingly, suburban) areas, those jurisdictions are the ones who need the

most deterrence. Such jurisdictions may find, after proper cost-benefit analysis, that they can

pass and enforce criminal sanctions that would impose some or all of the following consequences

on defendants convicted of participating in a violent flash mob:

• All of the current penalties for relevant crimes already extant in the criminal code of the

relevant jurisdiction, in addition to one or more of the following:


o Mandatory registration of online identifiers for a statutorily defined period of

time, a kind of “digital probation;”

o Restricted access to social media and social networking sites, enforced by

requiring social networking sites to maintain lists of users legally banned from

using their sites as the result of abuse of social networking services to incite

violence;

o Additional fines and extended mandatory minimum prison sentences for the

separate crime of abusing social networking services by using same to organize or

participate in a violent flash mob or wilding event.

In determining how long prison sentences should be or how high fines should be, “the criminal

sanction ought to be calibrated to make the criminal worse off by committing the crime.” With

regard to fines, this may mean that fines should be calculated as a percentage of a defendant’s

previous or expected annual income. Such “scalable” fines could penalize defendants without

being economically regressive. Moreover, some research indicates that a “socially optimal fine

should be set below the offender’s maximum wealth level,” because if a fine were imposed up to

an offender’s wealth level, the offender would have an incentive to dispose of his wealth, raising

the social cost but not increasing deterrence of the prohibited activity. (Kim 2007)

With regard to prison sentencing, “the Supreme Court is wrong to regard a sentence that imposes

a fine but provides for imprisonment if the defendant cannot or will not pay the fine as

discriminating against the poor,” because “fines and imprisonment are simply different ways of

imposing disutility on violators.” (Posner 2007) At the same time, however, one should not

ignore that the “social costs of imprisonment exceed those of collecting fines from solvent

defendants.” Id. Research indicates that because “the law must continue to rely heavily on

imprisonment as a criminal sanction, there is an argument … for combining heavy prison terms

for convicted criminals with low probabilities of apprehension and conviction.” Id. The


inherently slippery nature of the crime and the activity involved therein, results in low

probabilities of apprehension and conviction of crimes like participating in or organizing violent

flash mobs and wildings. Accordingly, punishments for conviction of such crimes should carry

heavy penalties.

Without discussing all the issues pertaining to “Hate Crimes,” generally, it should be noted,

generally, that there may be a high discount rate attached, from the defendant’s perspective, to

committing some crimes involving participation in or organization of violent flash mobs or

wildings as the result of the racist elements of some of these crimes. For example, there is

probably a high discount rate resulting from participants’ racist motivations that offsets the

expected costs of committing crimes against the victims of criminal behavior, when the

participants in a violent flash mob are stopping traffic in the street, and running wildly through

yards and porches in a quiet suburban neighborhood in a show of force, shouting “We’re gonna

kill all the white people! This is our neighborhood!”

This discussion does not extend to suggesting how long prison sentences should be, but they

should be long enough to deter the behavior at a cost that does not exceed the benefit of such

deterrence. That calculation is one that should be done by individual jurisdictions interested in

enacting laws against participating in or organizing violent flash mobs. Each jurisdiction should

perform cost-benefit analysis to determine the economic efficiency of implementing such laws.

Furthermore, laws providing additional criminal sanctions for participating in violent flash mobs

should expire after a set term of years, unless renewed before their expiration. Renewal of such

laws should be contingent upon their expected continued economic efficiency, following

periodic evaluations to maintain economic efficiency.


The needs of the specific state or municipal jurisdiction should govern the decision whether to

enact and enforce laws specifically designed to punish participation or organization of violent

flash mobs, and such laws should not be enacted or enforced in circumstances where their cost

would exceed their benefits. With some exception for protecting against large-scale,

revolutionary violence at the national level, the federal government should forego enacting laws

specifically punishing participation in violent flash mobs, and leave to local and state

governments the task of policing local incidents of violence, despite the fact that such acts may

be part of a national trend of violence and despite the fact that the incidents are organized using

methods that exist without much regard for local or state geo-political boundaries.

Finally, any jurisdiction that chooses to enact laws specifically designed to punish participation

or organization of violent flash mobs should include in the cost of enactment and enforcement

the cost of publicizing the details of the law to the public using public service announcements

and conventional advertising. While such advertising is often expensive, increasing public

awareness of these laws and the penalties for violating them is essential to the task of deterring

violent flash mob activity. If the public is not aware that there are laws against participating in

violent flash mobs, and if the public is not aware of the consequences for violating such laws,

individuals can hardly be expected to factor in the risks of violating such laws when making the

decision whether to participate in or organize a violent flash mob. Increasing awareness of the

law through public education is, therefore, a necessary part of any effort to deter flash mob

violence.

Conclusion Flash mob violence is a symptom of a larger over-all set of problems and circumstances. High

unemployment, inexpensive technology, increasingly obsolete law enforcement tactics and


equipment, cash-strapped law enforcement agencies, moral decline, and racial tension are just a

few of the factors in the equation that has produced flash mob violence. In order to reduce flash

mob violence in the long term, we must address the underlying problems in a holistic,

comprehensive way.

First, lawmakers must promote an economically responsible approach to fiscal policy. “A

constraint on the total level of federal spending must be imposed and the budget process should

begin with the establishment of this constraint.” (Gwartney, et al. 2005, 2010) Additionally,

strong measures should be taken to reduce the national debt, make it more politically difficult for

Congress to spend taxpayer dollars, make it more difficult for Congress to mandate any

expenditures by either state governments or private business firms, and stronger incentives

should be put in place to motivate the Federal Reserve to keep inflation as low as reasonably

possible.14

Second, state and municipal governments should take actions to increase public awareness of the

dangers of violent flash mobs and wildings. The information disseminated in this public

awareness campaign should not stop at politically correct boundaries, and state and local police

should publicize the identity, including racial identifiers, of individuals arrested on charges of

Moreover, the U.S. should reduce or eliminate the federal minimum wage, which

would lower the cost of labor, making it easier for businesses to hire workers at a price

commensurate with the value the workers’ labor would add to the business. The economic

growth that would likely result from these policies would have the effect of making it easier for

employers to hire workers, thus lowering the unemployment rate, and raising the opportunity

cost of crime, including crimes involving participation in and organization of violent flash mobs

and wildings.

14 These are all suggestions also made by Gwartney, et al.


participating in or organizing violent flash mobs and wildings by posting their mug shots in an

easy-to access portion of the relevant law enforcement organization’s website. Further, the public

should be educated about how best to defend themselves from violent flash mob attacks, and

how to report violent flash mobs as soon as, or – if possible – before they happen.

Third, local legislative bodies and law enforcement organizations should consider requiring

permits in order to conduct flash mobs, and enforce ordinances to that effect with stiff fines, or,

in the alternative (if someone is unable to pay the fines) jail time. The Supreme Court should

reconsider the constitutionality of such ordinances, and reverse itself for, inter alia, public policy

reasons on the grounds that such laws are economically efficient. Additionally, law enforcement

agencies should educate themselves about the best tactics and strategies to use to efficiently deter

flash mob violence. The first step is to put aside concerns about political correctness, and

consider with boldness all relevant factors in addressing the violent flash mob and wilding

problem. The next step is to embrace social media and use it to combat flash mob violence on the

internet by promoting awareness and setting up online portals to report violent flash mob

incidents and upload captured photos, video, and other data in real time, so local citizens can

report these incidents as quickly as possible.

Some state and municipal governments do need laws that specifically target participation in and

organization of violent flash mobs and wildings in order to provide additional incentives for

members of the public not to participate in such activities. If the incentives offered by the laws

already on the books were effective, these crimes would not be happening with increasing

frequency and intensity. The time to raise the cost of this negative behavior is now. One way to

do that is to pass laws, including repeat offender laws, and online identifier registration laws that


will allow people convicted of abusing social media to incite violence receive harsher

punishments, if they repeatedly offend.

The media has a role to play as well, and should stop covering up the details of these incidents in

order to protect the image of black Americans as the perpetual victims of racism. Instead, the

media should renew its commitment to the truth – that all men are equal, both in their capacity to

hate others and in their capacity as the victims of hatred – even when such truths are

uncomfortable, and challenge the established liberal-progressive social narrative. It is senseless

to portray members of a group of people as the “victims” of socio-economic conditions, when

those same individuals abandon production in favor of plunder as a means by which they seek to

increase their own pecuniary gains or otherwise use violence to attempt to alter the social

paradigm. The media has a responsibility to report all of the facts, honestly and candidly, and let

the public form opinions based on all of the facts.

In order to efficiently combat the violent flash mob problem, citizens should be well-informed

and well-armed. Police should be in touch with the local communities they ostensibly safeguard,

and should stay connected to those communities using social media and social networking

services. The media should report all newsworthy events accurately and candidly without regard

for political concerns, especially in stories that affect the public safety. Lawmakers should show

perspicacious regard both for their duty to protect the public from acts of violence and for their

duty to competently manage the expenditure of public funds for that purpose – a duty that

extends to limiting government solutions to those necessary and proper to achieve constitutional

ends. And most importantly, the public should promote public morals and values, including

respect for other people, respect for property, and respect for the law.


While all of these general principles of order and civility seem like “common sense” solutions to

a very complex, modern problem – “simple rules for a complex world,” if you will – it is the

failure to follow these simple rules that has created the violent flash mob problem. Without a

reinvigoration of traditional cultural values, a sound fiscal policy, and a renewed respect for the

law, the disturbing upward trend in flash mob violence and wildings is likely to continue

unabated until it reaches a crescendo that will be impossible to ignore. As one looks around at

the unrest in Europe and the Middle East, and the “Occupy Wall Street” protests in the U.S., it is

difficult to wonder if we are not already there.


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Documents

Ending Flash Mob Violence