Police in Manchester have hailed their 24-hour Twitter project a success, after tweeting 3,205 incidents on the microblogging site.
Up to 17,000 people followed the force’s feed, which aimed to show how overworked officers are.
Details of calls received by Greater Manchester included a woman who was reporting a man for shouting, “You’re gorgeous” and someone reporting a rat in their house.
Other crimes included a rape in the city and human excrement being smeared on the door handles of a police car. More than 340 arrests were made.
“The reaction we have received proves that the public perception of modern day policing was removed from the reality that my officers face,” Chief Constable Peter Fahy said.
“We have tried to give a serious message about transparency and how we get that out to the public.”
Other incidents recorded were shots fired in Salford, a
child being attacked, a post office being ram-raided and a car being found burnt out.
Officers also received reports that a baby was being dangled from the bridge – only for it to turn out to be a man carrying his dog.
Fahy added: “It’s generated huge
public and press interest and it has shown how social networking is an
excellent way of getting out information out to the public.
“It shows how the types of calls change over the day, as it
got later there were more calls about anti-social behaviour and
alcohol-related incidents.”
