The Seattle Police Department this week began tweeting details about newly stolen vehicles, according to a story in the Seattle Times. The police in this city already have 7,000 followers for its regular department Twitter account, but launched a new account specifically to tweet information about stolen cars. The account is twitter.com/getyourcarback
It’s still a somewhat manual process, however. An officer has to confirm a citizen’s report of a stolen vehicle and get the owner’s signature on a form. But as soon as the form is signed, the officer at the scene calls into the dispatch center, which will tweet details about the car including color, year, make, model, body type and license-plate number.
The police hope this will cut the number of vehicle thefts by up to 20 percent and get those that are stolen back to their owners more quickly. Seattle joins Albuquerque, New Mexico, and San Jose, California in issuing Twitter alerts about stolen cars.
