"Social media lead police to Bedford bank robbery suspect" by Trisha Thadani | Globe correspondent August 11, 2014
Bedford police were able to arrest a suspect in a bank robbery Monday with the help of an active social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter, officials said.
Joseph Barrett, 45, of Dorchester, walked into the Bank of America branch on Great Road at about 12:30 p.m. and demanded money, police said.
The bank’s surveillance cameras caught images of a male, believed to be Barrett, being handed a large amount of cash from a teller’s window.
You gotta work at the bank if you want to steal from it, dude.
Police immediately broadcast surveillance photos on their Facebook and Twitter accounts and were eventually able to locate the suspect using the resulting tips.
Barrett was arrested on South Road at about 3 p.m. and charged with one count of armed robbery, police said.
“The kinds of police-public partnerships we have developed in Bedford, using the social media tools at our disposal, are invaluable,” Police Chief Robert Bongiorno said in a statement.
Barrett is expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Concord District Court.
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