The optics were bad.
A man was captured on a home security camera looking into a Brownstown Township family’s vehicle late at night with a cellphone flashlight.
The incident occurred on Christmas Eve and the family turned the video footage over to police.
“It certainly looked suspicious,” detective Lt. Andrew Starzec said.
The department posted a clear shot of the man seen on the property and asked if anyone could identify him.
The response was literally more than police bargained for in this instance.
While it generated the response police had hoped for, Starzec said the rhetoric got out of hand.
“We ended up talking to him,” Starzec said of the man on camera.
As it turns out, he was at a holiday gathering and after leaving discovered he left his wallet inside the vehicle back at the residence.
Starzec said the man returned, but mistakenly pulled up to the neighboring house where the gathering took place.
He told officers he was trying to see if he could spot the wallet looking through the window.
Starzec said they checked out his story and believe he was being truthful.
“At the end of the day, this was not criminal,” Starzec said.
While the department seemed satisfied with the outcome, the social media post was still generating comments, and the tone had taken a turn.
Starzec said the comments had become “borderline threatening” involving a couple of people.
“They were saying things like, ‘I know where you live,’” he said. “We had already closed the case out.”
That being the situation, the department made another post on its social media account, and this one generated nearly 300 reactions from readers.
In the post, police said some of the information the original post generated was very helpful, but a few others prompted them to take action.
“Some comments began to become inappropriate and off topic, therefore the post has been taken down, as I feel we obtained the information needed,” the second post said.
Starzec said not everyone was happy about that decision.
A few believed it was an example of the government trying to hide things from the public.
The lieutenant said they didn’t want to get into a back-and-forth with their followers.
He said the more accurate explanation is that the post was archived.
It was not removed from existence, it was just hidden from view.
According to Starzec, the department is required to save the post so they can be referenced later if the need arises.
“Social media has been so helpful to us,” he said. “However, we are not going to host a platform for people to threaten each other.”
The man on the surveillance camera also asked that the picture be taken down, noting that people will still falsely accuse him of doing something wrong.
Police are continuing to encourage residents to report anything they see suspicious to officers, saying many cases are being solved by video footage.
