Welcome to the 21st century-Millennial-Social Media-I’m an Old Fuddy Duddy to old for this world we live in. It definitely is the sign of the times. Or maybe an emoji of the times, I don’t know.
When Jose Simms negotiated his surrender to police he didn’t ask for a getaway car or even a getaway plane. No cash to help him along the way as he plotted his escape. No Simms wanted his post to go viral. And I’m not talking about him wanting where he was staying to be destroyed.
No Simms agreed to a deal with the Torrington, Conn., police that he would turn himself in if his post seeking his arrest went viral. Give Simms credit, though. He got what he wanted. And he didn’t turn himself in.
So now law enforcement have to worry about criminals using social media as a way to stay out of jail. Actually, though, for the Torrington police it was worth a shot and it’s not like it gave up a car, plane or a wad a cash only to see this man still be at large.
Simms originally demanded his “Wanted” poster on the Torrington Police Department’s Facebook page receive 20,000 likes to turn himself in. The Torrington police demonstrating its negotiating skills got Simms down to 15,000 likes.
Simms got the 15,000 likes and then some. But the Torrington police didn’t get Simms.
So now it’s come to this. The next time some police department tries to negotiate some bad person out of a building, I guess the conversation will go something like this:
Bad person — “I’m not coming out until this is posted on my Instagram page.” Police negotiator — “We can’t promise you that, but we can promise you 10,000 likes on Facebook.”
Actually what Simms did reminded me of an outstanding movie, “The King of Comedy” starring Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lewis, which was made in 1983, which pretty much predicted what kind of society we would have today. “The King of Comedy” is actually a loose remake of “Taxi Driver” another brilliant film made in 1976 which pretty much predicted the kind of society we would have today.
My only question is how many likes do you think Travis Bickle would demand today?
— Charles Whisnand
