Pinterest seems to bringing out the creativity in everyone these days including the police. For example, in February, when an officer in Redwood City, Calif., discovered bags of stolen jewelry in the trunk of a car during a routine traffic stop, he turned to social media — in hopes of tracking down the owner of a charm bracelet stamped with names and dates. Eight hours after posting on his department's Facebook, Twitter — and the Pinterest page the agency launched in February — Detective Stahler received information from not one but three people who helped identify the owner of the bracelet. That alone would be a good story — but, when you learn that the jewelry was actually a mother's keepsake engraved with the names and birth dates of her children and stolen during a residential burglary in 1983, well, it's finally score one for technology.
While cops using social media to communicate is not new, there are signs that the practice is becoming more common, experimental — and effective.tA quick search on Pinterest shows about 85 boards from police departments around the country who have used Pinterest to help solve burglary and robbery cases, locate missing people, and educate parents about street drugs their kids may be exposed to locally.
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