Looking at how Facebook impacts police investigations – Cruel comments posted on memorial pages

Michael ShaprayNews

Andrea Macpherson

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Hateful comments on memorial pages, and inappropriate videos and pictures uploaded from crime scenes to Facebook. News1130 is looking into how police are increasingly devoting their investigative time to social networking sites.

The most recent example of this is the apparent gang rape of a 16-year-old in Maple Ridge, says News1130 Legal Analyst Michael Shapray. "They have access to seeing those videos. They can try and determine who were involved in the matter, and also people who are distributing those videos which could be in itself a criminal offence."

However, when it comes to hurtful or hateful comments like the ones seen on an page remembering a 15-year-old killed in North Delta last weekend. "If there was something posted that would trigger an investigation into the person posting being involved in something… that would be something police would probably want to keep an eye on."