FAST FACTS:
(Olive Branch, MS 11/19/09) Eight months after a small police department became Facebook savvy, cops there say Facebookers can claim their first arrest.
From the mean streets, to the internet superhighway, local police departments sing high praise for crime fighting online. The bust went down in the Olive Ridge Subdivision in Olive Branch. When an open garage door became an open invitation to a lurking burglar, homeowners nearly caught the guy, but he got away. He might have been long gone, if it weren't for the social networking site Facebook.
"You end up really with quite a bit of eyes and ears out there that you can put on a situation like that," says Major Tim Presley with the Olive Branch Police Department. He sent out an alert to the department's approximately 3,900 Facebook "friends". Those Facebookers reacted fast, and within minutes, helped land the suspect, Billy Buntin, behind bars. "This may be the first time that we've actually seen a direct arrest made," says Major Presley.
Cops say score one for Facebook, and for whoever was online at All Star Waste Management who signed on to see Buntin's description posted on the website.
"We went online to Facebook and found that they were in fact were looking for someone," says Hunter Carruthers who realized not long after that the suspect was in the office lobby, filling out a job application. "The police said that there'd been somebody here that probably matched the description that we'd seen on Facebook," he says.
"People are hungry for information and people are real crime conscious right now too," says Major Presley who credits this arrest to residents who have a thirst for knowledge and an urge to stop crime. More than 30 responses flooded the departments Facebook page after the arrest, from "good job" to "way to go".
"That interaction, being able to hear back from them is very satisfying for us," says Major Presley, who thinks it's a positive sign that neighbors want to tackle crime hands on.
In fact, OBPD takes social media so seriously that it has hired another employee to help update sites like Facebook.
- Billy Buntin, 28, arrested for stealing from Olive Branch home
- Olive Branch Police sent out alert via social networking site Facebook
- Facebook "friend" saw suspect's description and called police
(Olive Branch, MS 11/19/09) Eight months after a small police department became Facebook savvy, cops there say Facebookers can claim their first arrest.
From the mean streets, to the internet superhighway, local police departments sing high praise for crime fighting online. The bust went down in the Olive Ridge Subdivision in Olive Branch. When an open garage door became an open invitation to a lurking burglar, homeowners nearly caught the guy, but he got away. He might have been long gone, if it weren't for the social networking site Facebook.
"You end up really with quite a bit of eyes and ears out there that you can put on a situation like that," says Major Tim Presley with the Olive Branch Police Department. He sent out an alert to the department's approximately 3,900 Facebook "friends". Those Facebookers reacted fast, and within minutes, helped land the suspect, Billy Buntin, behind bars. "This may be the first time that we've actually seen a direct arrest made," says Major Presley.
Cops say score one for Facebook, and for whoever was online at All Star Waste Management who signed on to see Buntin's description posted on the website.
"We went online to Facebook and found that they were in fact were looking for someone," says Hunter Carruthers who realized not long after that the suspect was in the office lobby, filling out a job application. "The police said that there'd been somebody here that probably matched the description that we'd seen on Facebook," he says.
"People are hungry for information and people are real crime conscious right now too," says Major Presley who credits this arrest to residents who have a thirst for knowledge and an urge to stop crime. More than 30 responses flooded the departments Facebook page after the arrest, from "good job" to "way to go".
"That interaction, being able to hear back from them is very satisfying for us," says Major Presley, who thinks it's a positive sign that neighbors want to tackle crime hands on.
In fact, OBPD takes social media so seriously that it has hired another employee to help update sites like Facebook.
