Photos of a Lodi police sergeant were wrongly included in widespread social media posts about an alleged missing officer, the Lodi Police Department stated Tuesday.
On its official Facebook page, the department debunked a post that claimed “a female police officer, Carolyn Lynch (27), has gone missing” and that she “may be in extreme danger.”
The post, titled “Female Police Officer Missing in Semmes,” had been shared 64 times and had 112 interactions, according to the images.
But photos in the post of a smiling, uniformed officer weren’t of an Officer Carolyn Lynch. They were of the Lodi Police Department’s Sgt. Regan Porteous, officials said.
“Sgt. Porteous is uninvolved and she is doing well here at Lodi PD,” officials said.
The post appears to be part of a nationwide misinformation campaign about a missing officer, which often claims the officer is from a local community.
Versions of the campaign have popped up across the country, including in Indiana, Texas, New Jersey and Georgia, according to multiple reports.
The posts have sometimes claimed the “missing” officer is named Katie Cunningham, Fox4 reported. Meta has flagged some of the posts as misinformation, Politifact reported.
Lodi police first heard about it from Las Vegas-based reporters who were looking into the campaign, and noticed Sgt. Porteous’ Lodi Police Department badge in the posts’ photos, spokesperson Lt. Matt Latino told Stocktonia.
“If you search on Facebook for ‘missing officer,’ about half of the (posts) are photos of our sergeant,” he said.
While the motivation behind the campaign is unclear, scammers sometimes use such emotionally-charged online posts to bait-and-switch people into sharing ads, according to the Better Business Bureau.
“After you share the post, the scammer changes the original post to a deceptive rental ad, a sales pitch or a link to a survey that “guarantees” a cash prize,” the bureau stated last year.
“Now, your friends think you have recommended that content.”
It’s also possible the campaign is a phishing operation, Latino said. “We’re assuming it was a phishing scam (…) where it leads you to another link,” he said.
“It gets you to log into what you believe is Facebook, but you’re just entering your credentials into a third party account.”
The department encounters such scams constantly, Latino said. “Scams in general are so plentiful, we’re dealing with them on an everyday basis.”
“This one I guess is just a little closer to home,” he said.
The department’s post Tuesday warned residents about campaigns like the one wrongly featuring Porteous’ photos.
“Although we appreciate the overwhelming amount of shares in an attempt to locate an alleged missing officer, this is a good lesson in understanding the power of spreading misinformation through social media,” officials said.
“Please fact-check before sharing information.”