Facebook fighters receive 120 days in jail

VICKSBURG, Miss. (VDN) — The group of individuals who were shown in a widely shared video of a street fight on Grange Hall has been sentenced to 120 days in jail by Judge Angela Carpenter. 

“We’ve been working with the Judges to see if we can take a harder stance on this type of thing,” said Vicksburg Police Chief Larry Burns. “Some of these other ones you’ve seen, I really believe these things are staged so they can record them and put them on Facebook.”

Facebook pays content creators for videos and original content. Several fights originating from Vicksburg have made their way to social media, some employ ring-type lights that are used to record social media content.

“We are going to take those recordings, pull them from social media, see if we can ID that it happened in the city of Vicksburg, see if we can ID these people, and then place charges on them after the fact. We’re moving in that direction.”

Chief Burns went on to indicate that the Vicksburg Police Department and the Court must send a message to the community that this will not be tolerated and those who engage in this type of activity will face harsh consequences. 

According to Chief Burns, 30 days were suspended, and they will effectively spend 97 days in jail. Three of the individuals have appealed their sentence, according to Chief Burns.