The most uncomfortable part of the NYPD’s surprisingly successful new social-media strategy to target gangs online is when the police and the media must attempt to explain the slang. In another mass arrest today, the Manhattan D.A. announced charges against 63 alleged East Harlem gang members belonging to the crews Air It Out, True Money Gang, and Whoadey for an array of offenses tied to three murders and more than 30 shootings, including assaults, firearms possession, and gun trafficking. While trumpeting the bust, though, the authorities also, perhaps unwittingly, quoted some of the most famous rappers in the world.
From the New York Post:
“God forgives I don’t … somebody gotta die,” one alleged member of the gang “Air It Out,” posted on Facebook, according to the massive conspiracy indictments unsealed today.
“I’m 2 Glocks strapped, rolling down 112th Madison, 116 this is the New Iraq,” boasted another alleged AIO member.
The first, a Google search or basic radio knowledge reveals, is the title of a Rick Ross album. The second is a New York spin on a Meek Mill line from the song “Tupac Back” (also featuring Rick Ross): “I’m two Glocks strapped / Rolling down in Philly, this the new Iraq.” Apparently these guys, like teenagers everywhere, are pretty into Maybach Music.
UrbanDictionary seems to have been more effective for the cops more in some other instances, “according to a two page glossary provided to reporters today”:
A gun itself can be a “biscuit, a “bitch,” a “blamer,” a “clickety,” a “drum set,” a “flocka,” a “girlfriend,” a “grip,” an “instrument,” a “ratchet,” “little piece of metal,” a “shorty,” a “speaker,” a “toy,” a “utensil,” and, more oddly, a “flamingo” or a “sandwich.”
#Yikes.
