Social Media's New Role In Solving Crimes
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Before the digital age, when your dog wandered off you would post a picture on a telephone poll.
If someone broke into your home, you'd file a police report and hope for the best.
Now a days, however, more and more people are turning to their friends and followers into new age crime fighters.
When Karyn Locke's rare Gibson guitar was stolen from her home, she pulled out all the stops to make sure it was recovered.
"After we filed a police report I jumped right on the computer, and it was very easy to think of that as the next step to get our guitar back," said Locke.
She posted a photo of it online along with a plea for friends to spread the work and find her prized possession.
"It's almost like that commercial where they tell two friends and they tell two friends," said Locke with a laugh.
Her post was shared two thousand times in two days.
"The people that you know who are friends with you on Facebook or followers of you on Twitter, they're more likely to share your own information, so you have an audience that cares about you and they want to see you get help. They want to see you get justice," said Eric Gripp, a law enforcement social media consultant.
Gripp said the sharing of video and pictures related to a crime has worked well for law enforcement for years and now 'regular' citizens are willing to take matters into their own hands.
"They're not averse to taking a picture of something themselves, taking surveillance footage, a private camera they might have, putting it online themselves and just saying as a catch-all to their neighbors, 'hey, this person broke into my car does anyone recognize them'," said Gripp.
Lauri Stevens, a social media strategist for law enforcement, said it's human nature to help.
"People want to see bad guys go to jail. They want safe communities. With social media, now it's just so much easier to do that. We can sit with our phone on the couch and actually participate," said Stevens.
She compares this new age of crime stopper to an online neighborhood watch. She said social media posted by the average person is especially helpful in missing persons cases or theft.
"It's good to have these kinds of tools as a citizen to be able to solve some of these crimes ourselves," said Stevens.
Gripp adds that people should be careful about what the post online related to a crime. He said you don't want to share too much about you or your crime.
"You can't just think 'cause oh, this is just somebody who stole a package off my property, they might not be dangerous," said Gripp.
He adds that when soliciting for help through social media, people need to keep the authorities involved as much as possible, especially if someone gets in contact and says they have the stolen property.
In Locke's case, someone on Facebook reached out and said they had the missing guitar.
"I contacted the police to let them know that somebody did have my guitar and asked the next steps that I needed to take, so I would remain safe," said Locke.
The police arranged a meeting to return the guitar to Locke's grateful family.
"Never underestimate the power of social media," said Locke.