A Connecticut police lieutenant made headlines today after successfully negotiating the terms under which a fugitive has agreed to surrender himself into custody.
Twenty-nine-year-old Jose Simms, who is believed to be in New York currently and who has several outstanding warrants, promised to turn himself in under one condition: If the Facebook post written by the Connecticut PD that includes Simms’ ‘Wanted’ poster gets 15,000 ‘likes’ on the social network, Simms will surrender.
That’s after Lt. Brett Johnson negotiated Simms down from 20,000 likes before he would surrender. Small victories, right? Oh, and as you can see from the post, the number of likes easily beat the goal of 15,000.
Definitely a sigh-inducing moment, isn’t it, to imagine that the ubiquity of social media has led to something like this. In that post above, the lieutenant also states the obvious even though he shouldn’t have to:
Anyone who knows where Simms is hiding, for the love of all that is good just tell the cops already so that justice doesn’t hinge on how many likes some Facebook post gets (“It’d save everyone from the suspense”).
When I started writing this post on Wednesday afternoon, the counter was barely above 7K, and it passed 8,000 as I finish writing. Per Business Insider, this all started when Simms happened to check out the police department’s Facebook page. He shot a Facebook message to Johnson, saying: “Why don’t you post my picture? I’m wanted.”
