Police dedicate officers to monitoring social media during probes

The detective who led the investigation into the murder of Lee McKnight confirmed that resources are dedicated to monitoring the “commentary” being made by people on social media.

Large-scale investigations like the one into the murder of Mr McKnight often lead to a frenzy of dialogue on social media, often implying the guilt or innocence of parties involved.

Amongst the comments and replies are often leads for officers to follow.

“An investigation will be dealt with in line with our policies and established processes, but we are relying on receiving information from the public and that public information helps drive these investigations,” said Detective Superintendent Dave Stalker, the senior investigating officer in the case.

“When it is provided we will follow through and investigate.

“Over the course of the investigation, we do dedicate resources to media monitoring and that will include the commentary being made by people.

“What we would urge, to prevent anything getting missed in that area, is that if you do have something that is directly relevant to an issue or investigation please contact us and ensure that that isn’t missed within the volume of commentary that sometimes investigations of this type can create.”

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