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Ben Stallings
Professor McCampbell
English 101
November 17, 2015
A New Weapon in Society

Social media has become a weapon used to reveal the issues behind law enforcement
cases. (Latuff).

Everyone's like sheep on social media; like, one person starts making noise, and
everyone's like, 'Hey, yeah!' and then you got a whole bunch of people making noise at you.
This quote from Earl Sweatshirt shows how people have been captured by social media and it
has taken control of them. But this is not a problem for law enforcement, in fact it has actually
become a positive. With how fast social media has evolved and become part of society it has
impacted how crime has been viewed. With society's use of social media and the influences that
it has, law enforcement and its officers have been positively influenced in the ability to fulfil
their duties.

This picture shows how police are being affected and are unable to complete their job to
the full task. With the ability for people to edit footage right in the palm hand one can seemingly
change the story and how it appears. With people filming incidents with police officers the whole
story is not being told and information is left out that could be used on a case. With a case of this
being brought out relatively recently how much smartphones are affecting people's view and
understanding of law enforcement. Is there a line that should be drawn with it? The officer seems
to be of a Caucasian descent while the criminal seemed to be African-American descent. This
shows how society is perceiving the problem of what is causing police brutality and violence.
With how social media is a part of almost everyone's lives, law enforcement has decided
to make it a part of crime solving. A large quantity of the hate and violence that has been going
towards police due to the problem of racism. With the way that society is changing and how
opinions and views are being shared technology is facilitating closer and more collaborative
relationships between law enforcement and the community (Roberts). What David Roberts, a
writer for a part of the Chiefs of Police, is saying here is that the law enforcement agencies want
to work with the people in order to gain info from pictures or posts from others. When one looks
at the picture one can see how evidence from the multiple points of view. By taking input from
multiple people and film sources data can be used to prevent scenarios from occurring like in
Ferguson where no hard evidence was presented.
Filming of events can be quite beneficial to cases. If what has been filmed can be used as
legit evidence it will provide the people with the truth instead of keeping it hidden from the
people for the people may be outraged at the events that transpired even if what the officer did
was legal and justified. A case of this transpired recently involving Richland County sheriff,
Leon Lott. While some may consider the case police brutality and very violent other may see it

as aggressive but doing his work. And this is where social media would help, Since the people
knew very little what happened people started to assume things and speculate that the officer was
doing what he did for no reason. When looking back to the situation in Boston with the marathon
bombing the police lead an applauded for leading an honest conversation with the public during
a time of crisis in a way that no police department has done before (Davis). The people stayed
informed which helped them stay calm during a time of problem.
While there are many positives that come with law enforcement using social media there
are also many drawbacks and negatives. Since the topic of filming police is unclear to most
people it should be known that anyone can film officers completing tasks as long as it does not
interfere with the line of work. This is due to simply the first amendment granting this right,
many law enforcement agencies have tried to stop it both it would violate the constitution.
Looking at the picture nothing is wrong here since the people recording are at distance and the
officer is not being interfered with. However Gwendolyn Waters, a police chief in California,
states that They cannot shield themselves as easily from the repercussions of their jobs
defending the community. What the author is trying to communicate here is that while there is
no problem with the filming of the incident, the officer has little awareness to the filming or the
ability to stop it. Without the officers being protected problems would arise, so with this laws
would need to be established to help. A significant amount of work would need to be put into
developing the laws for protecting the people. Due to how the internet and social media operate
the laws would be difficult. First the laws would have to be discussed by the FCC in partner with
the FOP in order to create laws to help the officers. The major problem with this would be a
violation of the first amendment. And with current standings the relationship between the police

and social media is volatile (Waters). Its readily available and helps us paint a true and accurate
picture of what individuals are doing.
The negatives can get solved though by working with the people. Precincts have teamed
up with the university and received training from social-media experts (Kelly). From this the
officers will receive training and note the patterns of crime online. When looking and possible
premeditated homicides, police can piece together info to stop the incident. Like with the
shooting at Perry Hall High school in 2013, there was online data and patterns that could have
been used to link to the mindset of the shooter. With the info Its readily available and helps us
paint a true and accurate picture of what individuals are doing (Hanson). By specializing task
forces to look at this crime patterns issues will be stopped at a much faster rate.
Overall the impact that social media and the police would be a great one for the
foreseeable future. By having the community easily and safely communicate with police info
will be able to be gathered at a much quicker rate to help fight community and city issues. People
will also not be left in the dark about the current standing of court cases or problems occurring in
the community. The addition of social media as a tool to law enforcement would be one that
greatly impacts society.

Works Cited
Davis, Edward F. III, Alejandro A. Alves and David Alan Sklansky, Social Media and Police
Leadership: Lessons From Boston. New Perspectives in Policing Bulletin. Washington,
DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 2014. NCJ 244760.
Hanson, Wayne. "How Social Media Is Changing Law Enforcement." How Social Media Is
Changing Law Enforcement. Government Technology, 2 Dec. 2011. Web. 08 Nov. 2015.
Kelly, Heather. "Police Embrace Social Media as Crime-fighting Tool - CNN.com." CNN. Cable
News Network, 30 Aug. 2012. Web. 08 Nov. 2015.
Latuff, Carlos. A MELHOR E MAIS TEMIDA ARMA CONTRA A VIOLNCIA
POLITICAL. Cartoon. Brasil 247. March 17, 2014. Web
Roberts, David J. "Technology's Impact on Law Enforcement :Community Interaction."
Technology Talk. The Police Chief 78 .February 2011.
Sweatshirt, Earl. BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2015. 15 November 2015.
Waters, Gwendolyn. "Social Media and Law Enforcement: Potential Risks." FBI, 2012. Web. 08
Nov. 2015.