Santa Cruz Co. Sheriff’s Office using social media to keep track of stolen items

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office is now using Pinterest to help the public find lost or stolen items.

“We’ve expanded the use of our social media to better bridge the gap between the community and law enforcement. We feel like this will help serve the people that we serve,” said Lieutenant Kelly Kent with the Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office.

Lt. Kent told News Channel 5 they recover a lot of stolen items or people will bring things they find to the Sheriff’s Office. That means they also get a lot of people coming to the sheriff’s office to search for missing belongings and dealing with those people takes extra time and manpower.

Now, you can simply go on Pinterest and search for a missing item instead of making an appointment to go to the sheriff’s office.

The Sheriff’s Office also uses Pinterest for more than just stolen items.

“We also have a search and rescue post and a missing person’s post that we are always going to be updating,” said Kent.

This comes on the heels of the county’s new mobile app called “Citizen Connect.”

The free app allows people to report issues in their community such as pot holes, graffiti and abandoned cars among other things. Users will be given the right department to contact.

“Social media serves as basically the community policing model that we weren’t able to do back in the 90’s.”

You can even register to vote and pay your property tax bill on the new county app.