Justice in 140 Characters or Less

That must be weird. Talking about that with a policeman on Twitter.

Brianna Swank

Yesterday, I was going to Wendy's with Holli and Connor for dinner. Holli was driving, because I hate driving and avoid it whenever possible whereas she loves it, so that works for us. We pulled up to a stop light right in front of Honey Creek Mall, where US 41 northbound gets funneled into one lane because of construction, and traffic just stopped. People were inching forward into the intersection, cutting other people off. Those people were in turn then breaking as many traffic laws as possible to wedge between cars and get to their destinations. We sat, with zero exaggeration on my part, for more than fifteen minutes at this light, which is dumb. While we were sitting, of course, we saw a sheriff pull through on his way to get somewhere instead of doing something about the mess.

So I tweeted about it. It's kind of my thing. This morning, when going through Tweetdeck as part of my daily routine, I got a response back from an actual law enforcement officer informing me that it was THPD jurisdiction, not the county's.

I vacillated back and forth on whether or not this was awesome or Big Brother style scary, and I think I'm settled on awesome. The possibilities here are kind of mind boggling, actually. Could Twitter replace 911 in my never-ending request to destroy landlines and run Verizon out of business? Seriously. Think about this:

Just got into a wreck. GPS coords in profile. Send officer, please. #THPD

That is pure, unfiltered awesomeness, my friends. Especially with the total lack of social filter and common sense that so many people have on the internet. Because for every handful of polite tweets like that one we'd have requesting help from our neo-911 system, we'd have one like this.

Just smashed a car and punched the guy. I'm drunk. GPS on tweet. Send cop, idiots. #THPDsucks

Watching more deserving people go to jail for being rude and speaking their mind without the imminent threat of a police officer in their faces would make me happy. And can you imagine an episode of Cops? "We're responding to a tweet in town. Woman said her husband was threatening to pwnz0r her like a n00b." Priceless.