The Boston Herald reports that prosecutors and lawmakers are ready for a crackdown on gangbanging scumbags who threaten witnesses. Recently these thugs have gone high tech in their approaches to intimidation:
(Boston Herald) Police and prosecutors are battling a dangerous new culture of witness intimidation in Boston as alleged gangbangers use CDs, movies and slogans to urge citizens not to ``snitch.''
``Stop Snitchin' '' is the refrain of an underground hip-hop song a Roxbury rapper charged with murdering an innocent teen sings, along with lyrics listing witnesses who cooperated with cops.
It is also the name of a ``documentary'' nine men were caught filming outside a Mattapan school last August that threatened the ``rats that had turned against them.''
One of the filmmakers was Arthur Brice, the getaway driver in a notorious Boston shooting that left 9-year-old Jermaine Goffigan dead on Halloween night in 1994.
The words ``Stop Snitchin'!'' also were printed on the T-shirts of men who wore them to support two accused murderers on trial late last year for firing a shotgun blast that tore through the face of a 10-year-old girl, Trina Persad, as she played in a park named after Jermaine Goffigan.
This week, lawmakers announced a plan to create a state witness protection program and vowed stiffer penalties for anyone who threatens a cooperator.
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