Technology has advanced to the point where impact can be immediate if the message is posted to social media. Sioux Falls Police caution that approach has its drawbacks.

Sioux Falls Police Public Information Officer Sam Clemens addresses a Facebook post describing a possible abduction near 9th Street and Kiwanis Avenue. The incident in question Clemens uses as a teaching tool showing that time is of the essence when reporting crimes.

“We want people to call police first and post it on Facebook second. We’ve even seen cases where people posted on Facebook and then it doesn’t get reported to police until days later. From our standpoint, it’s really hard to follow up on these cases when it’s several days later.”

Abductions can happen in Sioux Falls and Clemens says police are aware of citizen’s concerns surrounding incidents that have been posted and actual reports of criminal activity.

“It’s hard to know if something like this happened or not. I’ve seen a lot of posts recently about different potential abductions in Sioux Falls. There were some with elements of truth to it others were (hard to substantiate). We don’t have any record that anyone called police (about the 9th and Kiwanis incident).”

Clemens cautions that there is a difference between posting crime details on social media as opposed to filing a criminal report mainly because filing false information with police is a crime.

The Facebook post describing an abduction at 9th and Kiwanis has since been taken down.


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