When a traffic crash at the intersection of Northwest 43rd Street and Northwest 25th Place sent a pedestrian to the hospital with a head injury Tuesday morning, Gainesville Police officer Ben Tobias immediately posted a Facebook status and tweet to alert Gainesville residents.
Tobias, a GPD spokesman, said he posts updates like this on social media sites several times a day. According to a survey recently published by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, social media is becoming a popular tool in law enforcement, especially in departments serving smaller cities.
Out of 1,200 police officers from small city agencies to federal agencies, four out of five respondents said they use social media platforms to help with investigations.
The research found officers are mainly using social media for identifying people and locations, gathering evidence and discovering criminal activity.
Tobias said he doesn’t use social media as a first-line tool, but it’s helpful in assisting with investigations.
“If we have a suspect, the first place we go to is Facebook, and we’ll try and use it to get information about that suspect,” he said. “We’ll also use it for a missing person situation to try and find a friend or family member.”
University Police Capt. Bart Knowles said his department mainly uses social media for identifying suspects.
When he has a photograph of a suspect from video surveillance and needs help identifying the person, UPD will post the photo online.
Knowles said UPD recently used social media to catch a woman who committed theft at Shands at UF.
UPD posted a photo from video footage that captured the woman, and someone recognized the suspect and called it in.
He said timeliness is one of the biggest advantages of social media because pictures can be posted immediately, and police don’t have to wait for newspapers or TV stations to post them.
Although the survey said discovering criminal activity was a top reason officers use social media, Knowles said it is too time -consuming for UPD to use it for that reason.
Although UPD officers use social media often, they don’t rely on it. Knowles said a good relationship with the community, where people call with concerns and tips, is key.
“Human intelligence is probably still our No. 1 advantage we have — getting people to call you that could steer you in the right direction,” he said.
