WASHINGTON - Investigators believe a MySpace posting sparked a melee between feuding girl gangs in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, ending with one 16-year-old girl hospitalized for stab wounds.

Authorities believe a gang from a Morton Street NW housing complex armed itself and set out looking for a 16 year old girl Tuesday night. The gang members apparently thought the teenager was responsible for lies being posted on the MySpace social networking Web site.

The girl gang apparently caught up with the girl, who was with her own crew, about 11 p.m. Tuesday in the 1000 block of Kenyon Street NW.  Witnesses say there were about ten girls from the Morton Street housing complex and five to eight from the other group.

Jamie Charles watched from her porch as the fight unfolded.

"It was crazy," she said. "I looked and they had hammers and sticks and stuff -- just walking down the street hollering at the other girls ... and they came up to them and were swinging the sticks and swinging hammers."

The victim was stabbed four times and hospitalized overnight.

Police have identified a suspect, saying only she is an adult resident of Northwest D.C.

Authorities say girl gangs can be dangerous.

"There's always a level of concern about violence like this, especially when you're involved with a stabbing where knives are very accessible, when you have violence that rises to the level of something like this," said Inspector Jacob Kishter.

Residents in this neighborhood say they are concerned about the prevalence of girl gangs.

"I think we should have concerns about that because somebody could get really, really hurt bad," said Reather Alston, a neighborhood resident. "It wasn't old kids. Some of them look like they were young: 13, 14, 16 -- young kids. They should've been home."

The 16-year-old victim is expected to recover.

Police say they have issued a warrant for the arrest of their suspect, whom investigators have not identified.

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