Claim: Gang members in Oklahoma City looking to rob or kill random victims throw rocks or bricks at cars in hope of getting motorists to stop.
FALSE
Example: [Collected via e-mail, August 2008]
OKLAHOMA GANG ACTIVITY
This is Misty speaking this is NOT a forward, I wanted to tell you all what happened to me today. Please feel free to forward on...in fact PLEASE warn everyone you know!!
Justin and I were driving down Wilshire (coming off Broadway Extension). I was headed toward Western (if you are familiar with the area it was right before the
Your melodramatic but honest friend,
Misty
Origins: The above-quoted account began circulating on the Internet on
Two male teenagers hurled a brick at the windshield of the car containing Misty LaFave and her son. Rather than stop, the shaken woman continued driving and
called 911. Neither of the car's occupants were injured.
Capt. Steve McCool of the Oklahoma City Police described the attack as
According to LaFave's e-mail, a police officer subsequently told her the attack had been "a gang thing," a remark she later described a bit differently to the Oklahoman as a "passing comment" made by the officer that the assault on her vehicle could have been gang related.
What the officer told LaFave is not known. The police report of the incident says nothing about gang activity, nor does it list what the officer might have said. The department will not now comment on the exchange because it does not want to engage a private resident in a public discussion about what an officer said or how it was interpreted.
LaFave's warning spread quickly and far. She issued it as a
Regarding the possibility the assault on LaFave's vehicle was part of an initiation or other gang activity,
Oklahoma City Police
This wouldn't be the first time teens have thrown rocks at cars for no other reason than to be destructive. One such series of attacks is detailed in the latter portion of our Spunkball article — in that wave of assaults in 2000, three teens who liked to drop large rocks off a pedestrian overpass onto cars traveling on a four-lane highway below killed two people and sent five others to hospital.
Barbara "a stone's throw away" Mikkelson
Last updated: 14 July 2011
Sources: |
Kimball, Michael and Ken Raymond. "E-Mail Chain Spurs Panic, Oklahoma City Police Warn." The Oklahoman. 21 August 2008. KFOR-TV [Oklahoma City]. "4:30 Newscast." 20 August 2008.