Absecon Police Looking for ‘Laid-Off Boy Band Member’

A South Jersey police department tried a little boy band humor to highlight a suspect in a shoplifting case.

Absecon Police posted a picture of a male suspect on their Facebook page and compared him to a "laid-off boy band member" with "frosted tips and ripped designer jeans" reported CBS Philly.

A tweet by Absecon police linking to the page said, "While it's not our job to judge, we can try."

However, the department's Facebook post  had been deleted on Monday morning without explanation. A call to Absecon Police Chief John DeRitis has not yet been returned.

CBS Philly said that the post, before it was removed, originally read:

This gentlemen with his frosted tips and ripped designer jeans suggests laid-off boy band member. Perhaps boy band groupie who lost his calling around the late 90’s/early 2000’s when these bands started their decline and stopped touring. Times were tough then. JT left *NSYNC in 2001 (one of our detectives is still getting over it). The Backstreet Boys took a break that same year. Unless you had the foresight to jump on that Jonas Brothers train you might have found yourself out of work.

 

Many departments have embraced social media as a way to get pictures of suspects in front of as many people as possible.

"Typically when we get a lot of shares and likes on a post, we identify the person that we're trying to catch," New Jersey State Police Sgt. Jeff Flynn said.

"Our society has moved to technology and using smartphones, and we're adapting to that," Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato said.