Officer Trey Economidy of the Albuquerque Police Department learned a lesson about the negative effects of social media the hard way a couple months back, like many Americans have in recent years.
His learning process went like this: Economidy, a seven-year veteran of the police force working in Albuquerque's gang unit, pulled over a man in the parking lot of a strip mall for suspicious behavior. The man, 29-year-old Jacob Mitschelen, who had an extensive criminal record at the time of the incident, attempted to escape on foot after being pulled over. Economidy did chase. A gun fell off of Mitschelen's person shortly after he began running and he immediately picked it up. The officer, Economidy, demanded he drop it. When he didn't, Economidy fired his gun at Mitschelen multiple times and fatally wounded him.
At that point, it was still a fairly standard incident, although the fact that someone died in the pull-over caused local news outlets in Albuquerque to research the circumstances. What they found caused a scandal of medium-sized proportions, got Economidy suspended and now has him outside the field and inside the police station at a desk job for the foreseeable future.
What was it? Well, for starters, Economidy's Facebook page was public at the time of the incident. So when a local TV station went to it, they were able to scan through his employment data, religious beliefs and similar self-provided personal information. Under occupation, Economidy listed his job as "human waste disposal." The TV station relayed the findings to the police station; Economidy was suspended the next day.
His page is now private, and he has since apologized for his actions, calling them "extremely appropriate." The New York Times picked up on the incident this week and ran a story Wednesday on its website -- it's slated for front-page publication in Thursday's paper -- taking a all-around look at the many problems social media has caused for police across the U.S., from Economidy's incident to an Indiana cop who posted a picture of another officer pointing a gun at his head to even an officer who filmed himself stripping off his uniform and masturbating and then sold the video on eBay's adults-only section. All three of these incidents were exposed by media investigations, the Times reported.
What's my take on all this? Well, I particularly liked the angle the Times took on the stories and thought it shrewd of them to group all of these incidents in one deep-digging piece this week. The article served two purposes: (1) it essentially concluded, or induced readers to conclude, that the media was rightfully responsible for exposing these stories to the general public in a necessary manner and (2) it gave readers detailed information for their own personal security purposes online, regardless of profession.
Both of those are great in my book.
When will people learn? In our new world of social media, nothing goes untouched. You would think that that people would realize how viral and out of control things they post on their personal social media pages can become and stop it!
ReplyDeleteI thought it was great that you liked the fact that it gave readers information about security purposes online. If these kinds of stories cannot make people take privacy on social media sites seriously, nothing else will.