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Elmer Smith: Jail flash-mobbers, but credit teens who stayed away

POLICE SAY that 150 kids from seven high schools were involved in that melee in Center City this week. What they didn't say was that more than 1,500 others from the very same schools chose not to riot.

POLICE SAY that 150 kids from seven high schools were involved in that melee in Center City this week.

What they didn't say was that more than 1,500 others from the very same schools chose not to riot.

That's not the sort of thing that police say. It's not their job to point out good behavior. It's not the sort of thing columnists usually say, either.

But those were the kids who came to mind when I read those disturbing accounts of Tuesday's flash mob. They had access to the same social networks that the knuckleheads followed.

They just made better choices.

So, we know that the mass mayhem in Center City was not caused by Internet access. Councilman Jim Kenney knows that, too. But he is investigating the role that social networking sites may have played in inciting the criminal behaviors he witnessed, and considering possible sanctions against the Web entities involved.

The increasing incidence of flash mobs and cyberbullies is enough to make social networks a tempting target.

But every minute we spend stranded on that sidetrack distracts us from a far more troubling truth: There is a small group of twisted sociopaths whose crimes are often obscured by the size of the mob that the Internet helps them gather.

Almost as disturbing is a fringe element whose fascination with violence exalts these sociopaths to a position of prominence and fuels their bloodlust.

There is not a social networking site on earth that could induce any well-adjusted child to kick someone's teeth in with little or no provocation. But you could fill a stadium with kids who would go out of their way to see it. Some of them live on that narrow border between fascination and participation.

Those are the ones we have to reach before this bizarre anomaly becomes a well-established trend.

There is nothing inherently violent about flash mobs. I perused a Web site called Flashmob.com yesterday and reviewed a half-dozen flash-mob videos. Most involved silly group pranks on a massive scale.

They didn't turn violent or destructive because they weren't led by people who are violent or destructive or fueled by a fascination with violence.

What we're calling flash mobs today was called "wilding" a few years ago when groups of young people attacked strangers for fun and filmed it on their cell-phones for Internet distribution.

The same sickness manifested itself two years ago in a wave of attacks by groups of young felons who beat up homeless men and even set fire to some of them. They filmed their felonies, too.

It's a form of amusement for the criminally deranged. We saw it in the death of Sean Patrick Conroy, who died while being beaten on a subway platform by a group of kids who targeted him at random.

It has to be dealt with harshly. Kids who hurt people for fun must be prosecuted and punished. The punishment should be as public as the crime.

Let's post the videos of their trials and sentencing on YouTube, especially the scenes where they are led off to detention in tears.

The others have to see that there are serious consequences to mob rule. It's not a game.

Sounds cruel. But the sacrifice of a few can save the many. We need to come down hard on it now while there are so few of our children involved in it.

Meanwhile, those of us in the media and in positions of prominence have to pay more attention to the ones who routinely make good choices.

They do everything we ask of them. But it seems to always escape our notice. The more we do to enhance their influence, the more we isolate the sociopaths and their fringe followers.

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith