Here’s a little piece of advice for those in trouble with the law: If you don’t want to be arrested, stay off social media.
You may recall that on July 28th, riots broke out in Huntington Beach, California following the Vans U.S. Open of Surfing competition. The melee resulted in property damage to stores in the area, small fires being set ablaze, toppling of port-a-potties, looting and fights in the streets and damage to police cars.
As is common now in the age of social media, photos and videos of the chaos went viral online, and police promised to take advantage of the postings to help make arrests in their followup investigations.
When the Huntington Beach Police Department posted a series of photos to its Facebook page on August 7th, asking for assistance in identifying some of the suspects involved in some of that day’s activities, Luis Rodriguez was the feature in photo #15.
Apparently the temptation was too much for Rodriguez to resist. He “liked” the photo of himself, a mock-worthy move that wasn’t lost on viewers of the post. That “like” led to Rodriguez’s arrest, according to an updated statement today on the Huntington Police Department’s Facebook page.
August 16, Luis Enrique Rodriguez, 18 years old of Anaheim, was arrested on our warrant for his arrest by the Anaheim Police Department. HBPD had obtained a warrant for his arrest for vandalism after our investigation showed him writing “f*ck the pigs” on the sides of police cars at the scene. Mr. Rodriguez, apparently proud of his actions, “liked” the Huntington Beach Police Department’s picture #15 and shared it with his friends, which was noticed by numerous fans of our Facebook page and a series of tips leading to his identification.
Another suspect from the July incident was also reportedly busy tweeting about his interactions with police recently.
I have to wonder the same as one of the commenters on the Huntington Beach police department’s Facebook post: You “still ‘like’ this post, Mr. Rodriguez?”
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