Footage has emerged online of gang members openly boasting about shooting people and gang violence but police say they are finding it difficult to have the content removed.
Gangsters are threatening rivals and glorying their crimes through a string of viral videos.
An investigation revealed Birmingham gang members have been using grime music videos to issue chilling threats to each other on YouTube .
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| Gang members boast about shooting people in the clips |
Police chiefs say they are working to identify criminals and remove the clips but admitted it is "very rare" for them to be taken down from social media, despite repeated requests by officers. One video, posted in December, appears to make reference to a shooting and a separate stabbingin the city, the Birmingham Mail reports.
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| Viral videos in which gangsters are making chilling threats have been posted to YouTube
And earlier this year sickening footage emerged of Burger Bar gang members openly boasting about shooting people and mocking rivals the Johnson Crew.
The footage emerged during the trial of gangster Reial Phillips - and even helped to convict him of taking part in a turf war which saw eight people shot.
Phillips was jailed for 27 years by a judge who said he had “gloried in the shootings” on the videos he had posted online to “ramp up tension between the two gangs.”
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The expletive-filled footage shows the 20-year-old openly bragging about shooting a 16-year-old in the back, talking openly about committing crimes and making shooting motions towards the camera.
Crime Board member Waheed Saleem had earlier asked senior officers what the force was doing to take down videos that are posted on social media to glorify violence in the West Midlands.
Assistant Chief Constable Alex Murray said the force was working hard to remove videos and identify offenders as quickly as possible.
He said a number of people had been arrested in connection with videos from alleged gang members in south Birmingham, which had attracted some 50,000 hits online.
However, he said many requests made by police to remove had been ignored by big internet companies.
He added: “We do try and get these videos taken down and I want to provide reassurance that we will take action when we have videos of people brandishing knives when police are driving past.
“Whenever we identify a video where an offence has taken place, or it glorifies violence, we will be arresting them and hopefully bringing them to justice.
“It’s worth saying that we rely on intelligence and when people have seen videos we will investigate it. Often when videos have not breached the law we will refer them to companies like YouTube for breaching their terms of service.
"That is something the Commissioner might be able to take forward for us, because I know we make a lot of referrals in the West Midlands and it’s very rare that any videos are taken down when we have made those referrals.”
ACC Murray said officers were currently doing a lot of work in south Birmingham, particularly with schools, to divert young people away from gangs.
Commissioner David Jamieson said: “We really need to do more to take down these videos.
“It’s reassuring to hear that people who use social media to torment rivals and those who advocate violence are pursued.
"I take very much your point that social media companies need to do a lot more to remove these videos, particularly those that advocate violence.
“It is something that we will take up with the new government.”
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