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‘Tattletale Tuesday’ Facebook posts serve as partner in fighting crime for Orem police

Posted at 9:58 PM, Jul 05, 2016
and last updated 2016-07-06 12:29:53-04

OREM, Utah -- A simple Facebook post has become the perfect partner in solving crime for Orem Police Department.

Lt. Craig Martinez is the man behind the posts on Orem Police Department's Facebook page. When officers hit a dead end in their search for a suspect, a Tattletale Tuesday post serves as the ultimate snitch.

Martinez has been posting for the past year. He is surprised by the success the department has seen. With about 90 percent of the cases posted online, suspects are identified and often arrested.

Martinez simply posts then lets the department's tens of thousands of followers go to work. The posts often include a clear picture or surveillance video that gives the online community a good glimpse of a suspect.

“They repost it, they share it, they retweet it, it gets so much traction behind it that eventually somebody knows these people,” Martinez said. “We’ve even had some suspects call us saying 'I'll come and turn myself in and talk to a detective. Just please take my picture off the Facebook page.' So it works both ways.”

Martinez recalls one of the first Tattletale Tuesday posts. Police were trying to identify a man who held several businesses at knifepoint.

"Luckily we had our surveillance cameras that caught the whole thing. We took some pictures from that and Police posted that on their Facebook page,” said John Anderson, Former Franchise Owner of Hungry Howie’s a business that was robbed at gunpoint."

Anderson was skeptical if the online post would work but shortly after hitting the online world the suspect was identified.

“I put it on our Facebook page and 20 minutes later we knew who he was and later the next day I believe we had him in custody,” Martinez said.

The Facebook posts make it easy for police and the public to work hand in hand.

“It just makes our whole community safer if we can all work together to help police do their job,” Anderson said.

Nine out of 10 times, Orem Police say they’ll catch the bad guy. You can visit their page here https://www.facebook.com/OremDPS/?fref=ts