INSIDE THE GAMER PLOT TO 'SHUT DOWN' NYC
-GAMER KAI CENAT AND HIS AMP CREW PLOTTED OPENLY ON THE INTERNET TO ‘SHUT DOWN’ NEW YORK CITY, BUT THE NYPD FAILED TO STOP IT
-CENAT’S PARTNER DUKE DENNIS, RELEASED SONG DAYS BEFORE UNION SQUARE GAMER RIOT THREATENING TO ‘FUCK UP THE CITY IF MY NIGGAS WITH IT”
Kai Cenat announcing he and his AMP crew including Duke Dennis were coming to New York for a promotional give-away event in Union Square, 4:00 pm, Friday, Aug. 4. Photo credit: screengrab Twitch, Aug. 6.
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By JB Nicholas & TA Stacy
A group of rapping gamers plotted openly on the Internet, at least a week in advance, to unleash chaos in New York City but the NYPD failed to stop it.
"We finally return to New York tomorrow, chat," Kai Cenat, a gamer-turned-social media star, announced to his 6.5 million Twitch followers on Thursday.
Cenat has another 5.6 million followers on Instagram, 3.7 million on YouTube and 1.5 million more on Twitter. He broadcast a call for them to turn out in Union Square at 4:00pm on Friday for a promotional give-away of PCs, PS5s and pricey electronic accessories. He added that he would live-stream the event.
"Right here! Basically right here" Cenat announced, displaying a Google map of the north side of 14th Street at Unions Square. "We gonna be right here giving away PCs and all that shit. Be motherfucking deep, right here."
Cenat admitted he thought about selecting Times Square as a location for his publicity stunt but decided against it because of police surveillance.
Referring to the famous TKTS booth in Times Square, with its signature raised and stepped red platform, "I can't do the Red Steps due to the fact that shit would be shut down ASAP." That was because, Cenat explained, police paid close attention to events there: "the boys be on dick."
Not only was Cenat himself going to be at Union Square, he added "goddam near the whole AMP gonna be in New York."
AMP refers to "Any Means Possible," a group of Georgia-based gamers, rappers and entertainers blending music publishing, reality television, video production and public relations. "Any Means Possible" is also the group's motto.
Cenat claimed the purpose of his visit was a promotional give-away, but he acknowledged the possibility of violence was real.
"We making sure to have good protection" Cenat explained during his Twitch broadcast, "all my New York niggas ... are wild boys. You'all niggas are animals."
"Anything can happen, bro. Anything can happen," he emphasized to his viewers, encouraging them to bring a friend to ensure personal safety: "Just make sure you pull up with a friend so you make sure you good."
Notwithstanding the risks, Cenat called for a big turn-out: "I need all my New York niggas out there. We're gonna be going cray-zee bro."
Cenat wore a red New York Yankees baseball cap while he broadcast, suggesting affiliation with the Bloods street gang.
The 21 year-old social media star was not the only AMP member to issue a call to their followers to be at Union Square at 4:00 pm on Friday.
Denzel Dennis goes by the stagename "Duke Dennis." He released a new song on July 27 called "Dee Block General," featuring lyrics boasting he "might fuck up the city if my niggas with it."
Both Dennis and Cenat were charged with inciting riot, reckless endangerment, criminal nuisance and other crimes, according to the NYPD.
The charges against Dennis have not been previously reported.
Dennis mocked the charges in a Tweet on Saturday, "Shit crazy af😂".
Cenat himself celebrated with a video published on his YouTube channel, with a title boasting "Kai Cenat Shuts Down New York City."
About 6,000 people showed up in Union Square in response to Cenat's call. Promotional video captured by a photographer working with Cenat and published on Cenat's YouTube shows him running through the crowd surrounded by security. He never gifted anything to anyone, his own video shows.
Another video posted to YouTube by NBCNew York shows Cenat being lifted by his bodyguards to safety over NYPD barricades.
After getting stiffed by Cenat, the crowd turned on each other and bystanders. They fought among themselves, destroyed property and appeared to rob a halal food cart of soda and water, among other crimes, video shows.
Jeffrey Maddrey, NYPD Chief of Department, said at a news conference after the riot that members of the crowd committed "acts of violence toward the police and the public."
65 people were arrested, half of whom were juveniles, the NYPD said. Not including Cenat and Dennis, six were charged with felonies, the Daily News reported.
The spectacle was broadcast widely on social media and traditional news media, further enforcing the public's perception that crime and disorder are out-of-control in New York City.
The NYPD budget this year is $5.83 billion, yet it continues to be out-foxed and embarrassed by teenagers exploiting social media—for free.
Mobs of looters sacked luxury goods stores in SoHo during protests against the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, forcing the NYPD to acknowledge "an intelligence failure.”
“If a couple of hundred people knew to be in a certain place at a certain time for criminal activity and we didn’t detect that, that’s on me," John Miller, the NYPD’s chief of counterterrorism and intelligence, said at the time.
This time, the NYPD's failure is, in at least one major way, worse than its failure to predict and stop the looting in 2020. The looting, the NYPD said, was largely organized through private chat groups. The Union Square Gamer Riot, in contrast, was organized on the open Internet.
Cenat broadcast AMP's plan on Wednesday. But Maddrey, the NYPD’s chief-of-department, said at the first news conference the NYPD gave after the riot that the Department didn't become aware of a "crowd forming in Union Square" until "about 1:30 pm" on Friday. At a second news conference held a couple hours later, Maddrey said it was "12:30, 12:35" that the NYPD "became aware, our entertainment unit, and our intelligence division, became aware of this post, submitted by an influencer."
Maddrey acknowledged the NYPD does "monitor social media."
But he couldn't explain why the Department was caught reacting to what he said was an “exponentially” swelling crowd, instead of proactively stopping it from forming in the first place when Cenat announced his group's specific plan on social media at least 24 hours in advance.
Maddrey acknowledged the NYPD's response was deficient.
“We can't allow this to happen again in the future," he said. Maddrey promised a review to "determine exactly what our steps were."
Still, he added, "This speaks to the power of social media, and the danger of social media."
Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD officer, deflected blame off the NYPD and onto what he said was insufficient parental supervision.
“This isn’t a police issue—this is a parenting issue,” Adams said on Saturday. “Our children cannot be raised by social media. They’re being inundated by influencers.”
Unlike the mayor, policing experts were blistering in their criticism of the NYPD's response.
"If they had even one eye on social media—as they do with gang chatter—they would have seen this coming and been prepared," Jeffrey Fagan, the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, told The Free Lance.
Instead, Fagan explained, the NYPD is "obsessed with gangs as the key to bringing down the shooting and murder rates. That's where the intel is monitored and digested. Not a thought to this kind of collective action."
Eugene O’Donnell, a former NYPD officer-turned-professor-of-policing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, blamed the lapse on a general loss of morale and effectiveness after years of sustained criticism of policing nationwide, especially following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.
"You are surprised that policing has collapsed in the US? Where have you been?"
The NYPD ignored an invitation to respond.
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