The Stevens Point police department is having to stamp down a rumor about sex trafficking that went viral on Facebook last week.
The post claimed that 5 girls had been drugged and kidnapped at a local nightclub. Assistant Chief Mike Rottier says it was nothing more than a rumor from start to finish.
“People are claiming that something happened and but they weren’t there and they didn’t see it firsthand but they heard it they heard about it. It can be a huge waste of our time.”
Rottier says it was obviously false, but that didn’t stop people from reposting it. “As soon as you put that out on a public site that’s going to gain traction and it can be a huge waste of time, of our resources at the police department. That’s the bigger issue.”
Rottier reminds people not to spread obvious rumors, and to contact the police department about incidents they know directly about. He says cases like this make it harder for the department to investigate actual sex trafficking.