WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — West Palm Beach police say a Canadian teen was arrested for making online threats to a LGBTQ pride event over the weekend.
Finding these online threats is now an emerging part of police work, and law enforcement officer in South Florida are actively involved.
This is a whole new world of police work, diving deep into new technology to try and fight crime.
Inside the walls of the West Palm Beach Police Department, police work is watching the web.
"We are on the cutting edge of technology in the country actually," said Lt. Cliff Hagan with the department’s Strategic Intelligence Center.
The center zeroed in over the weekend on a Canadian teen who police said made a video post threatening a shooting at West Palm Beach's "Pride On The Block" event, a video first seen by police in Miami.
"That officer who saw the video thought it was a credible threat and notified her supervisors and supervisors notified us immediately," Hagan said.
Internet threats are increasingly part of police work now. Mass shooters, like the one in Buffalo, is suspected of leaving a long trail of web postings, or in Uvalde, Texas where the alleged gunman left cryptic messages online.
"The smallest thing that might not be a threat to the average person is something every police department will investigate. There’s always a possibility that statement might lead the down the road to stopping a horrific event," said Alexis Piquero, a criminologist at the University of Miami.
And it’s the Strategic Intelligence Center's job in West Palm Beach to get those reported threats and sift into sites most of us know and those we don’t on the dark web.
"We’re taking all intelligence we’re getting from different sources and the public and putting it together, evaluating threats as they come," Hagan said.
