Neighborhood Crime Watch Goes Social

Michael Dallas came face-to-face with crime last Friday morning.

"I was sleeping on my couch right here," Dallas said in his Fort Worth home, along the shore of Lake Worth. "And I woke up to two individuals pushing on my door right here."

Dallas said when he approached the glass doors, the two people on the other side ran away.

But the incident did not end there.

Instead, Dallas followed. He got into his truck and, using his cellphone, recorded two videos of people he suspected of the attempted burglary.

Dallas posted both videos to his personal Facebook page, with the hope of identifying the unknown people.

To date, one of the videos has been viewed more than 43,000 times, and within one hour of its posting multiple people came forward with the identity of whom they believed the video shows.

"I was stunned by the power of social media," said Dallas, who is president of the Scenic Shores Neighborhood Association. "The way that the story went out and multiplied among people I didn't know at all."

Since then, Dallas started a specific "Crime Watch" Facebook page for his neighborhood. And it quickly gained approximately 250 members.

John DeGroat was one of the first to sign up.

"When you see the crime site pop up [in your Facebook feed] you immediately go and look, see what happened," DeGroat said.

Dallas' page is far from unique. Neighborhood groups across the country have long been posting updates about suspicious vehicles and crimes in their area.

It is a trend that law enforcement noticed long ago.

"It's how a lot of people get their news," said Sgt. Jason Babcock, of the Watauga Police Department. "And what better way to reach tons of people instantly [than] through social media?"

Watauga police, like many departments across the Metroplex and beyond, maintains an active social media presence, sharing videos and pictures of suspects in crimes they are investigating. In addition to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, Watauga police subscribe to the NextDoor.com website as well as share information thru the site Tips411.

"Sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's not," Babcock said about the information shared through citizen crime watch pages. "But when we can use that to our advantage, we take advantage of that anytime we get a chance to."

Babcock said he would advise citizens not to follow potential criminals, like Dallas did, in the interest of identifying them – instead to just "observe and report."

"It's really brought the community together, and able to share information in a way I never thought would be possible," Dallas said.