Social media play big role in riot probe

People outraged by the damage that rioters wreaked in downtown Vancouver, B.C., on Wednesday night are exercising their detective skills using social-media websites.

In real time, photos and videos of people smashing windows, setting fires and causing havoc popped up on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.

To help police identify rioters, some computer users created pages, groups and blogs such as identifyrioters.com and vancityriotcriminals.tumblr.com.

By Thursday night, more than 73,000 people had "liked" the Facebook page "Vancouver Riot Pics: Post your Photos" and were posting photos and screenshots from the Facebook pages of people who admitted participating in the riot in their Facebook status. Another page on Facebook asked users to "tag the hooligans." "Tagging" on Facebook means identifying people in photographs.

"To Rioters: This isn't '94. Everyone has a camera. Everyone is easily able to browse pictures. Some of you have posted evidence against yourselves even. You're screwed. That is all," one commenter posted.

One rioter admitted on his Facebook page to flipping and burning police cars. Another posted on her status that she had looted $400 worth of makeup. Some of their friends warned that the status could be used as evidence and should be taken down.

By 5 a.m. Thursday, police had received 120 tips on their tip line.

"The response from the public wanting to help the police identify the individuals involved in last night's criminal activity has been overwhelming," Vancouver police said in a statement.

Queenie Wong: 206-464-2108 or qwong@seattletimes.com