Mass UK SMS alert program nets first capture
A six-month-old UK program wherein police flood local residents with text messages warning them of shady characters roaming their neighborhoods has finally succeeded in catching its first perp. The $260,000 "Police Direct" system was launched by the Suffolk Police Department last August mainly to alert people of "bogus callers" known to be in the vicinity, but it was repurposed on Tuesday in the hunt for a serial church burglar whose non-secular crime wave had panicked clergy scrambling to put wine and wafers on lockdown. Police eventually caught the 43-year-old man in Brandon after one of the 6,000 members of the pilot program who received an SMS somehow recognized the culprit from what was presumably just his written description. No word on any reward for the eagle-eyed Samaritan, or even if he/she will receive a refund for the cost of the incoming text.
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