Prometheus 6

belle lettre @Scatterplot  

I don’t know what the sociological definitions are for constitutes a gang, but the legal definition seems to fit. Just because it doesn’t seem to “fit” with the popular conception of gangs as racial minority “thugs” doesn’t mean that this was a mere “accident” or forgivable aberration in the behavior of otherwise upstanding white citizens. This was not a case of good white people going crazy in a Lord of the Flies moment of sudden norm shifting. If this were a group of young Black, Latino, or Asian men, the gang allegations would not be in dispute. What these men did was reprehensible. Gang rapes, gang killings–group violence is simply abhorrent, and if this was premeditated, as it appears to be (they left one party to go to Kauanui’s house), then this is cold-blooded murder, and if this was part of their gang’s plans to perpetrate violence and terror, then the murder was gang-related.