NEW YORK — The shooting deaths of two New York City police officers are drawing new attention to the role that social media networks play as a platform for threats of violence, particularly against police and other law enforcement officials.
Ismaaiyl Brinsley, the officers’ alleged killer, posted anti-police and anti-government messages online in the weeks before the killings, including one on Instagram hours before the officers were shot and a photo of a pistol and bloodstained pants with the caption: “I’m putting Wings on Pigs Today.”
“That seems to be the rage here, anti-government and anti-police,” said Robert Boyce, the NYPD’s chief of detectives.
Police departments across the country are moving quickly to harness the reach and transparency of these networks as tools to investigate and, they hope, neutralize the potential for violence.
“If you see something on social media that is a threat against a police officer, call 911 immediately,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio implored the city’s residents. “We would much rather get too much information than too little. … Once this individual posted on Facebook his intention, anyone who sees that has the obligation to call the police immediately and report it. We cannot take this lightly.”
Increasingly, departments are using social media such as Facebook and Twitter as intelligence-gathering tools and vehicles for community outreach.
“Back in my day, the FBI had wiretaps or surveillance to find out where people will be meeting. Now it’s monitoring the Internet,” said Kenneth Springer, a former FBI agent who runs Corporate Resolutions, a New York-based firm that spots online threats and risks for corporate clients. “That’s why law enforcement is going to have to devote more resources to this. And hopefully they’ll thwart the next thing such as this.”
Tim Burrows, a retired Toronto police sergeant who advises police departments on social media strategy,
said that the killings a week ago in New York are likely to cause departments to monitor social media threats more closely, even though most of that kind of talk may just be idle chatter.
“Police would rather chase down 1,000 false leads than see something that happened in Brooklyn on Saturday,” he said.
Detective Drew Fowler, a spokesman for the Seattle Police Department, said police there have found that having a robust social media presence can help solve crimes.
“When the time comes and there’s a child missing, we put it out on Twitter, and we find them in 10 minutes,” he said.
