On January 24, Ricky Lamb was hit by a car and killed. His body sat in the morgue until Valentine’s Day though, because the incompetent local police contacted the family via Facebook. It took a month for Lamb’s mother to find the message.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the ordeal of Anna Lamb-Creasey, who had no idea what had become of her son. Apparently, the authorities couldn’t figure out how to find a woman who was desperately looking for her son, so they opted to send her a message over Facebook.
Because Creasey isn’t friends with the cops on Facebook, the message was filtered to the often ignored “Other” folder. Why didn’t Creasey pay attention to message? Because it looked like spam. The message was sent by an account under the name “Misty” with a photo of the rapper T.I. as the profile shot.
So an official police communication was sent from a social media account using the name of a pornbot and the photo of a convicted felon. How could Creasey have possibly ignored the message?
It’s bad enough to learn that your son is dead. The police could at the very least do their jobs by finding the next of kin. Or if they’re going to be lazy, they could at least send the message from an official account. Or better yet they could do their jobs and not communicate a tragedy in the coldest way possible. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution via Daily Dot]