GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – If you capture video of a crime and post it to the internet, police say if you don’t share the video with them, they’ll scour the internet to try to find it.
Green Bay PD Chief Andrew Smith tells WLUK….
“We do have some people who are really talented at looking around the internet and seeing if there is anything from a particular time or a particular location”
The Green Bay Police Department is investigating the shooting this past weekend at the Apple Pub in Appleton because Appleton Police Lt. Jay Steinke fatally shot Jimmie Sanders.
Molly Pickright was inside the bar when shots rang out and recorded four videos on her cell phone.
Pickright told WLUK the videos were shared with police, and were also initially posted on social media, but she later decided to take them off.
Chief Smith couldn’t provide details of his department’s investigation, but says he’d rather have people send pictures or videos to his department before posting them on social media.
“Sometimes if somebody posts something on the internet and everybody gets a chance to see what it is, that may change their recollection of what they’ve seen at a particular event”
Smith says social media posts can also fuel speculation and false information. That is something Sanders’ family has been dealing with.
The family is working with Milwaukee private investigator Daniel Storm to help get them answers.
“I’ve been doing this almost 40 years,” said Storm.
“We get crackpots. People who just want to be a witness and they really didn’t see anything or they have mental issues or they were drunk at the time. They just want to be a witness”
Like police, Storm also searches social media for videos.
Smith warns any video of an incident posted to social media typically does not tell the entire story of what happened.
“There is much more to the story than gets captured on that single video whether it’s an in-car camera, whether it’s a body camera on a police officer or whether it’s a cell phone that somebody is holding up” That’s why police say if you can take one safely, a video or picture could be a needed piece in cracking a case.
Investigators say the Apple Pub incident started with a bar fight between two men. Neither of those men are Sanders, the man who died.
Police say one of the two in the fight, Henry Nellum, pulled a gun during the fight, and the gun went off once.
Among the charges Nellum faces is first degree attempted intentional homicide.
