JACKSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Social media can be a powerful tool, and law enforcement agencies are fully aware of its powers.
Many, like Jackson Township, post almost daily on their Facebook page, getting the community's help in solving a wide range of crimes from petty thefts and burglaries to assaults.
While many law enforcement agencies and local police departments use social media to send alerts and spread awareness, Jackson Township uses its Facebook page almost daily.
The department’s Facebook page launched in 2016, has 27,000 followers and has been a hub for crime-solving across the township and Stark County.
JTPD asks the public for help identifying individuals involved in open investigations. It generates dozens of comments and shares across the web daily. Some of these images of people may look unassuming, but police chief Mark Brink said there's more to a picture than meets the eye.
“You can't assume by the picture why we want that person,” said Brink. “They could be a witness to something that happened and we know they were there at a certain time. I know when you first look at it it's like oh yeah they're stealing. It's to our advantage that you don't really know why we are looking for them.”
Other area agencies like Westlake police have also caught on, using social media to help crack cases.
“These pictures get passed around very quickly and have a very broad range of people that see them,” said Cpt. Gerald Vogel with the Westlake Police Department. “We have been very successful in identifying criminals that way.”
Both Brink and Vogel said their department's posts even help other law enforcement agencies beyond their jurisdictions throughout Stark and Cuyahoga counties.
“If we put somebody up there, not only the people in the community, but other police officers are looking at that from other jurisdictions and those types of things,” Brink said.
Brink believes that around 75% of the individuals posted get identified, which saves departments thousands in time and resources.
“It could take weeks of old fashioned police work to pass around someone's picture by means that we just don't have with technology,” said Vogel.
“We may look through old jail mugshots, any way we look into it, but those are tough,” Brink said. “You just have a person walking by a camera with nothing else around it to identify them. It uses a lot of our resources.”
Above all, both department pages would be nothing without community support.
“Us working alone or the community working alone isn’t going to get half as much done as us working in conjunction with the public,” said Vogel.
