Wanted man agrees to turn himself in if his mugshot gets 15,000 likes on Facebook, share Connecticut police
A Connecticut police department is trying out a new approach to get wanted criminals to turn themselves in. According to a new report, the City of Torrington police department posted two mugshots on Facebook early Wednesday, May 22, morning and claimed that they had made an unusual deal with Jose Simms, pictured in the first mugshot.
CNN reported that the police department wrote that if the post got 15,000 likes, he would turn himself in. The social media post also said that "if you didn't want to wait in suspense, you could call with any information about where the two people are".
"Here's an interesting one ... Jose Simms (The first warrant pictured) negotiated with me earlier this week (Through Facebook) and has agreed to turn himself in to Torrington Police if we can get 15,000 'likes' on this post (I said 10,000 he wanted 20,000, we split)," the police department's Facebook post said. "It will be difficult but is doable."
The Facebook post got a slew of reactions in the comments section, ranging from feelings of patriotic duty to disgust. One commenter even went and straight up asked the department if their social media post was a joke, to which the police page responded that it was "not a joke at all".
As of now, the post is at 17,000 likes, but according to an updated version of the post, Simms is yet to turn himself in. He is wanted for seven counts of failure to appear. Court documents show Simms has previously been charged with risk of injury to a child, breach of peace, false incident, violation of a protective order, misuse of emergency 911 and false statement.
Torrington Police wrote in the comments that they believe he is currently in New York, but added that they are unable to access him.
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