Stolen cars just got a lot hotter thanks to tweets from Seattle Police. SPD this week began to use Twitter to broadcast information about stolen cars to potential tipsters.
Employees in the Seattle Police 911 Center tweet the color, year, make, model, body style and license plate number of the car so that followers of "Get your car back," can be on the lookout for the vehicle .
The Twitter site is twitter.com/getyourcarback.
Respondents are asked to call 911 to report seeing the vehicle so that a dispatcher can send officers to the area. SPD cautioned its Twitter ati not to try to apprehend occupants of the car.
An average of 9.9 cars have been stolen each day in Seattle this year through October, according to police. That's up from 8.46 cars per day during the same period a year ago.
Seattle Police Chief John Diaz said he believes Twitter will help prevent and reduce auto theft and help drive public awareness of the problem.
SPD has 6,980 followers on Twitter. If you're not one of them, you can follow by joining twitter.com/seattlepd.