York Region police ask to tag along after man tweets ‘need a spliff’
“Awesome! Can we come too?” police tweeted back. The King City resident was reportedly fired after that reply to his quest for weed at work went viral..
If you’re going to tweet about buying, selling or using drugs, it’s probably best if you don’t also tweet at the police.
One man from the Greater Toronto Area, identified as Sunith Baheerathan on Twitter (@Sunith_DB8R), learned this the hard way on Tuesday when his tweet “Any dealers in Vaughan wanna make a 20sac chop? Come to Keele/Langstaff Mr. Lube, need a spliff” attracted the wrong kind of attention.
Police might never have known had it not been for an earlier, unrelated tweet Baheerathan sent that included “@YRP,” the twitter username for the York Regional Police.
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That tweet prompted police to click on Baheerathan’s profile, and Const. Blair McQuillan said the first thing they saw was the now infamous tweet.
“This person made a request for a drug dealer or a drug trafficker to attend their place of business, but no actual offence had taken place at that time,” McQuillan said, so police “decided a lighthearted approach would be best.”
The “lighthearted approach” involved jokingly asking to tag along for the drop. Police tweeted: “Awesome! Can we come too? MT @Sunith_DB8R Any dealers in Vaughan wanna make a 20sac chop? Come to Keele/Langstaff Mr. Lube, need a spliff.”
McQuillan said the police response mixed “humour and levity” with education, but several hours after police brought the issue to the attention of Baheerathan’s employers, Baheerathan tweeted he’d received a “call of termination.”
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His employer, Mr. Lube, also tweeted “the matter has now been handled.”
An employer at the Mr. Lube location mentioned in Baheerathan’s tweet, who would not share his name, confirmed to the Canadian Press that Baheerathan had been fired Wednesday, but would not say whether his dismissal was related to his online activities.
Despite some Twitter users voicing their support for Baheerathan, saying the issue was blown out of proportion, McQuillan said there’s no difference between “standing on a street corner yelling out that you want to purchase drugs” and tweeting it.
“You’re putting it out for the entire universe to see and hear,” he said, adding that the police follow up online just the same as they would if they overheard someone asking for drugs on the street.
But Baheerathan, who didn’t return requests for comment, tweeted repeatedly that his words shouldn’t be taken seriously. By Wednesday evening his twitter account was closed.
After tweeting jokes about being famous, he also expressed regret over the incident, writing: “Can’t lie, stupid move but would y’all have noticed that tweet if YRP didn’t retweet it?”
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Baheerathan isn’t the first person to get a comical tweet from York police.
Back in November, twitter user @BRITTVNY used the popular catch phrase “that awkward moment when” to describe smoking a joint near police offices.
They were quick to respond, tweeting: “@BRITTVNY That awkward moment when you realize you just drew way too much unwanted attention to yourself. Drugs are bad Brittany.”
That response only garnered a couple of hundred retweets, nothing close to the attention Baheerathan is receiving.
McQuillan said police need to strike a mix of education and entertainment if they want to be heard online.
“It allows us to show that there are people behind the badge,” he said. “This is a great way for us to engage our community.”
