In what very well be a first incident of its kind anywhere in the world, a well-timed Facebook status update was the key to a teenager having a robbery charge against him dropped. Rodney Bradford, a nineteen year old from Harlem, was arrested for a robbery committed in a public housing apartment building in Brooklyn. He spent 12 days in the Riker’s Island jail, and faced a lot more jail time if he’d been found guilty of the robbery.

But luckily for him, he had an alibi. Not only did his father and step-mother state he was at home during the alleged robbery, he also posted a Facebook update from a computer at his home in Harlem, just one minute before the crime took place in Brooklyn. Facebook corroborated the fact that the update was posted by someone who had signed in with Bradford’s username and password, and that was that. And what was the fateful status update? “Where’s my pancakes?”

And while Bradford was rightfully saved from trouble by his update, the whole thing does have the potential to cause trouble. What’s to stop future criminal masterminds from getting accomplices to furiously post updates to their Facebook accounts, as the criminals commit nefarious acts? Regardless, it is nice to see social media finally helping someone get out of trouble. Usually, it’s the other way around.

Tags: Facebook, Rodney Bradford, Social Media

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