Homicide Cop’s Callous Tweets and the Power of Social Media

"Guess where I'm at??? It never ends"

That's what @Lamudercop tweeted in the early morning on October 11th. Sal La Barbera, according to his google and twitter profiles, is a supervisor for the Criminal Gang/Homicide Division. Hes been with LAPD for 30 years, 24 of those with CGHD and is the current Squad Leader of FBI/LAPD SOS ll Homicide Task Force. A New York transplant, he's also provided consulting to writers and film makers throughout Hollywood and appears on television regularly.

Everyone knows the life of a murder cop is tough, and no one expects them to be cuddly, but I'm baffled as to why he would tweet a picture of a recently deceased person lying on the street and not show even a shred of compassion for the person or their family. On the job, cynicism is to be expected, but the world of social media changes things as it becomes public.

From reading the twitter timeline, the picture is of the corpse of a murder victim somewhere near 106th and Wilmington. When I saw the picture and the caption La Barbera wrote, the first thing that came into my mind was "fuck the police". Actually, "FUCK DA MUTHA FUCKING POLICE!!!" is probably more accurate.

It's one thing for media to ignore a death in a poor neighborhood and spend 30 minutes on the Michael Jackson trial, they're idiotic like that and we don't pay their salaries. But when an officer, no less a supervisor with 30 years on the force uses twitter to make light of someone's tragedy, it makes me angry. It's not just the coldness, it's the double standard. You would never see a cop post shit like that on the Seal Beach massacre because people would be all over them and someone would get fired, reassigned, or reprimanded within days.

Social media is a two way street and can be a powerful thing when used correctly. The detective can tweet all the pics of food, friends and the things on the job he sees as he pleases, but in my opinion this crosses the line. It's disrespectful to the community he's supposed to be "protecting and serving". I'm pretty sure that Sal or someone over at the LAPD is going see this and possibly take some sort of action against me. Maybe I'll end up as one of his tweets. Who knows, but you can be sure I'll tweet that shit right back. And that's the power of social media.