Twitter 'beef' escalated to Shariek Douse shooting

The escalating violence that led to Shariek Douse being shot and killed in Hamilton's North End on Wednesday night stemmed from a "previous stupid Twitter beef," his cousin and friends say.

And though social media fights can seem innocuous, experts say they are becoming a very real problem that's leading to youth violence in Hamilton – especially among groups that resemble youth gangs.

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Whether or not Douse was involved in any gang-related activity isn't clear.

"He was with friends and a group of punks ran on him," said Douse's cousin, Jakayla Douse. She said a fight on Twitter culminated with the burst of violence that happened near a housing complex at MacNab Street North and Simcoe Street West.

"Anything that happens needs to be dealt with seriously," she said. "There have been [multiple] shootings within a year and nothing has been done to prevent each one that's happening."

Police have not yet announced any arrests in connection with the shooting – one of several incidences of gun violence that have happened in Hamilton this summer. It's not clear if there is any connection between them.

They did, however, arrest four males — two adults and two teens — Thursday afternoon when warrants led to the seizure of a semi-automatic gun, ammunition, drugs and money.

Const. Steve Welton said police cannot connect these arrests with the shooting at this time.

"(It's) too early in the investigation to make any links," he said. "The investigation is still ongoing."

'90 per cent of this goes down on social media'

Douse's friend Rushan Piroev told CBC News that police could proactively block a lot of violence among young people in the city if officers watched social media closely. "If they did, they'd easily prevent things from actually happening," he said. "Ninety per cent of this goes down on social media."

Gang affiliation is a huge factor in these situations, Piroev says, so any kind of gang activity on Twitter or Facebook has to be looked at seriously.

"Kids hate not being taken serious, so they take drastic measures to show that yes, they in fact are capable of serious offenses," he said.

Police investigators say it's way too early in the investigation to say if the shooting was gang related, and another of Douse's cousins who asked not to be named over fears for her safety, said he wasn't involved in any kind of a gang.

But other friends of Douse's say the violence was gang related, mentioning names like BNA and LOM, groups that were talked about last year when 14-year-old Jesse Clarke was killed.

David Lane, the executive director of the Hamilton/Burlington John Howard Society, said things aren't that simple. Representatives of the society's YARD program – which focuses on gang violence prevention – knew who Douse was, though he wasn't in the program himself.

Lane said the incident "wasn't random." Douse was also shot in November of last year, but wasn't critically injured.

"There seem to be issues between different individuals that escalated to his death," he said. "Obviously there is an element here of young adults who are up to some kind of criminal behaviour."

Minor conflicts escalate online

To the average person, that might sound like a gang – but in many cases, those affiliations lack the firm connection to gang violence in the formal definition that police or the courts use, Lane said. That definition includes a hierarchy and structure that commits crimes in an organized way.

"A lot of what we're looking at here might not squarely fit the label of a youth gang," he said.

But that doesn't mean it's less dangerous – and social media is stoking the flames, Lane said.

"Social media has really changed the ball game. It has a tremendous influence on young people in the community," he said. "It really has escalated some of the issues."

"The use of social media is a big concern for us."

Piroev says his friend's death is an example of how something so serious can start so small online.

"A minor conflict can escalate into something where a person feels he has to prove something," he said.

"A lot of people who have no place in any criminal activity now feel like they have an outlet. If they're not on the corner, they're in their room on a laptop or a phone."

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