CURSE OF THE INTERNET

While I doubt the scumbag who place this ad was serious, his sorry-ass prank could easily have cost the lives of police officers.

AD: $1 MILLION ‘PER HEAD’ FOR DEAD COPS
Maplewood police are investigating an alarming ad posted to St. Louis Craiglist

PoliceOne.com
March 1, 2012

MAPLEWOOD, Mo. — A Craigslist ad offering $1 million to kill police officers is under investigation by the department it targeted.

"Wanted dead, all the Maplewood City police officers, paying one million per head," the ad, posted to the site Wednesday, begins. The note also specifies a $2 million reward for the murder of a specific detective.

Maplewood Police learned of the threat when an officer in a neighboring jurisdiction saw it online and printed it, according to Detective Sgt. Matt Nighbor. It has since been removed from Craigslist, which has agreed to work with the agency to determine an IP address, posting location or other possible origins.

The connection to the detective mentioned by name in the ad is unclear at this point, Nighbor said.

"We do a lot of investigations and put a lot of people in prison, so it could be any one of those cases," Nighbor said. "It specifically mentions the detective so we are retracking his cases."

The 31-officer department has dealt with animosity before, but that didn't make the ad less alarming.

"It's disconcerting," Nighbor said. "We are threatened by individual letters in the mail, but nothing where it's published like this."