Polson Police’s Facebook hoax goes viral
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POLSON — No one should accuse Polson Police of not having a sense of humor.
The department posted a hoax on Facebook Feb. 11 warning about methamphetamine laced with the Zika virus.
The post, which was addressed to methamphetamine users, advised that meth from Montana, Washington or Idaho could be contaminated with Zika. Accompanying the post was a request to contact Polson Police for a free screening to make sure one’s meth wasn’t contaminated. Last week, Police Chief Wade Nash said the post was somewhat of a joke, but had resulted in seven or eight people being referred for drug counseling.
Cpl. George Simpson said that all of the conversations and referrals were done through Facebook Messenger except for one person who talked to him on the street.
As of Friday evening, the post had been “liked” more than 7,700 times, shared nearly 20,000 times and received more than 1,500 comments. Simpson said that the post had more than 2 million views and the number of followers of the department’s page had increased from 800 to 3,236 as of Friday.
“I’m really amazed at how much of a response we got,” Nash said. Simpson added that Facebook is “just another community policing tool for us.”
