People are always saying stupid stuff on Twitter but was this worth getting the police involved? Lions Managing Editor of the team’s website Chrissie Wywrot, tweeted out a photoshopped picture of new Head Coach Jim Caldwell holding a birthday cake. That promoted Jeff Moss to send the following tweets:
11 days after the initial tweets, the Lions filed a police report with the Allen Park Police because they viewed this as a credible threat:
When the police first contacted him, Moss didn’t have a clue what they wanted to talk about. He said that the tweet had been a throwaway joke, and it didn’t cross his mind as potentially being anything that would launch an investigation.
“I asked the detective before I talked to him if I needed my first amendment attorney present,” he said. “He only wanted to talk on the phone.”
An email exchange between Moss and Detective Jim Thorburn confirms that the department didn’t consider it a credible threat.
“There is no criminal element to this,” one of the Thorburn’s emails to Moss said.
The same letter said the department was only trying to advise Moss of the situation and the conversation would only take “all of two minutes.”
Now the police have contact Moss and have determined him not to be a threat and no criminal activity took place. However, this is a good lesson to all the Twitter users out there. Be careful of the stupid comments you make whether they are a joke or not.
You never know who is watching.