At The End Of The Brawran Social Media, 2 Gang Members In Cirebon Were Arrested By The Police

Cirebon Police Chief Kombes Polisi Arif Budiman interrogated two suspected social media gangs in Cirebon, West Java, Friday (6/1/2023). (ANTARA/Khaerul Izan)

Cirebon City Police, West Java, arrested two members of a social media gang (medsos) who fought, resulting in a death. The victim was abused using a sharp weapon. "We have arrested two people and two others are still being pursued," said Cirebon Police Chief Kombes Arif Budiman when releasing the case at the Cirebon Police Headquarters, quoted from Antara, Friday, January 6. Arif said the two suspects arrested with the initials GN (17) and RS (17) were proven to have committed a criminal act of severe abuse that resulted in a death. According to him, the two suspects are still high school students (SMA) in Cirebon. Both were proven to have stabbed using a sharp weapon of the type of sickle and hit the victim using a golf club. The police chief continued the brawl and persecution took place on December 30, 2022 at around 05.00 WIB. The case began with the challenge of the social media gang by inviting random dueling. "This problem is trivial, starting from challenges or challenging each other between gangs on social media. They start to take challenges from 11 pm to meet around 05.00 WIB in the Tanal area, then there is persecution and beatings resulting in the victim's death," he said. Apart from the two suspects, the police are still hunting for two other perpetrators who have been proven to have abused and the identities of the two are known to the police. Arif said that from the suspect's confession, before carrying out the brawl between the social media gangs, they first gathered in one place by consuming alcohol. The number of gang members who carried out the brawl was 40 people aged 15 to 17 years. "When they fought they carried a number of sharp weapons, such as sickles, machetes, and knives," he said. As a result of their actions, the two suspects were charged with Article 80 paragraph 3 in conjunction with Article 76 C of the Republic of Indonesia Law Number 35 of 2014 concerning Child Protection, with a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. The police chief appealed to parents to supervise their children when they had not returned home until late at night because they were feared of being involved in gangs or groups of delinquents. "We ask parents to be strict in supervising their children because we are currently only able to carry out extinguishing measures. When a crime occurs, we can only process it so that the role of parents is the most important," he said.