Monday, December 01, 2008

By MICHAEL R. SHEA
mshea@modbee.com

last updated: February 29, 2008 07:49:57 AM

TURLOCK -- Officer Neil Cervenka was at home on the Internet when he ran "turlock" through break.com, a YouTube-style Web site where anyone can upload video for the world to see.

He clicked on "Ghost-riding the Whip in Turlock."

With roots in the Oakland hip-hop scene, ghost-riding is when a driver slows a car to a few miles per hour, then jumps out and dances alongside it -- "the whip" (the car) being driven by a "ghost."

Watching the video, Cervenka saw six teenagers jump out of a tan 2004 GMC pickup and dance alongside it, in the bed and on the hood. The truck slowly rolled along Country Walk Lane in northeast Turlock.

"I took notes," Cervenka said Wednesday.

A low camera angle picked up the license plate, and Cervenka hit pause. Without any enhancement, he copied the plate number.

Nineteen-year-old Francisco Plasencia wasn't home on Presidents Day when Cervenka knocked on his door, but his stepfather, to whom the pickup is registered, was.

Standing in the doorway, Cervenka asked him whether he owned the GMC (he did) and whether he knew what his son was doing with it (he didn't), the officer said. Cervenka asked him whether he had a computer with an Internet connection. Cervenka also asked to come in.

"He said, 'Yes, we do,' and, 'Yes, you can,' " Cervenka said.

The stepfather identified his truck, his son and his son's friends. With that, Cervenka said he will forward the case to the Stanislaus County district attorney's office, where prosecutors will decide whether to try Plasencia on misdemeanor reckless driving.

As of Thursday, the district attorney's office hadn't received the case and wouldn't comment on the likelihood of prosecution without reviewing the facts, Assistant District Attorney Carol Shipley said.

Plasencia did not return a call for comment.

If the case goes to court, it will be the first time in the region that the videotaping and posting on the Internet of a suspected crime has led to an arrest. Many in the area are watching closely.

"We've always advocated that law enforcement should maintain a presence on MySpace and YouTube for gang-related and drug-related intelligence," said Stanislaus County sheriff's Detective Lydell Wall, who works with the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force. "The Internet is an excellent source of evidence."

Cervenka, a traffic officer in Turlock, previously worked in gang enforcement, where he said he routinely searched the Internet for gang information.

This case, Wall said, demonstrates the widening of law enforcement's presence on the Internet, where car tricks such as ghost-riding, illegal street races, fight clubs, underage drinkers, drug users and graffiti artists routinely post videos of themselves in the act.

"Ghost-riding the whip in Turlock" has been pulled from break.com and YouTube, but police can subpoena the Internet companies for a copy of the video, Wall said.

What's moving toward the courtroom has been common in schools for years, said William Bourns, associate professor of criminal justice at California State University, Stanislaus. Schools across the country have expelled students for fighting after cell phone video surfaced on the Internet.

Bourns said there's a long history of videotape being used in criminal cases, from Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles police to attacks on the homeless to police cruiser dashboard camera footage, but he hasn't heard of a case hinging on Internet video.

"As YouTube grows, more and more police departments will have individual officers looking and watching," he said. "Crime in this category -- unique, exotic, different kinds of crimes -- will slowly come under the watchful eye of the law."

Bee staff writer Michael R. Shea can be reached at mshea@modbee.com or 578-2391.

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