An embarrassing slip of the mouse put a graphic photo never meant for public viewing on the Carthage Police Department’s page on the social networking website Facebook.
Carthage Police Chief Greg Dagnan said the picture, posted under the heading “Mudstock has been set for June 2nd! More details to come,” was only on the department’s page for a second, but that was long enough for an unknown number of people to see it, and a few people to capture a screen shot of it.
The picture was posted shortly before 3:30 p.m. Monday.
“We were posting a picture of a department event, and if you have posted pictures to Facebook, you know, you browse for the picture and it comes up with the name and JPEG,” Dagnan said. “The wrong picture was grabbed and just as soon as it flashed on the screen, the post was deleted.”
Dagnan said he went to his computer, logged on as someone else, and could not see the picture after it was deleted.
Others in the department logged on to computers and phones and couldn’t see the picture either, but some people did see it and called the department to report it.
“Of all the pictures it had to be, it had to be one that was very offensive,” Dagnan said. “We’re a police department, we obviously have sensitive pictures on our computers, and that’s the one that someone happened to grab. I think we’ll change our policy where we will not use a computer that is also used for investigations to update Facebook.”
A statement on the CPD’s page said: “If you have been on facebook in the last few minutes at the CPD facebook page, a grievious error was made and a photo involving a current investigation was posted rather than the mudstock photo. This was a terrible error and we sincerely apologize. The post was deleted within seconds, but I understand a few saw again. Thank you to those who have called to let us know.”
The post had drawn six comments as of 4:45 p.m.
One poster put “get it together CPD,” while another poster was more forgiving; “look, everyone makes mistakes. relax.”
On Friday, Carthage Police Chief Greg Dagnan sent out an email announcing that the department had started a Facebook page.
In his email, Dagnan gave three goals for the department’s use of social media.
• To take public service to the public.
• Alerting the public to ongoing crimes and investigations.
• General information.
