Police using Twitter can save lives

This afternoon I was doing some research on the use of the hash tag #police when I noticed the following tweet

"Who you gonna stab at graduation? #kidswithweapons #longknife #police"

Warning bells started ringing in my head. I clicked on the photo attached to the tweet, a mixed race teenaged male with dark black rimmed glasses wearing a lime beany hat. This opened up his twitter profile. I noticed that a previous tweet was "BLACK POWER!!!! #blackpanthers #graduation" and that he was into God.

Twitter gave his location as Anderson, a town in South Carolina, USA. It also had details of his facebook address. I clicked on this and found his full name and there was a better photo. I used Google to find the phone number of Anderson Police Department and phoned the details in. They were very pleased, found out where he lived and dispatched a patrol car (they then wanted to talk about the Royal Wedding but my phone bill couldn't cope with that <grin>.