Police officers trying to find out who was behind a fake Twitter account set up in the name of Peoria’s mayor have raided a home, seizing computers and phones and hauling several people in to be questioned. Tuesday’s raid was carried out by four plainclothes officers even though Twitter had suspended the account several weeks ago. Three people at the home were brought to a police station to be interviewed, as were two other people who were met by police at their workplaces.
Police carried out a raid on a home in Peoria, Illinois, in an attempt to unmask the person behind a Twitter account that lampooned the town’s mayor, according to a report in the Peoria Journal Star. A 27-year-old woman, who was one of three people in the house at the time of the raid, told the news outlet that the police seized every electronics item in the house, asked her about the Twitter account and told her an “internet crime” had taken place. Her boyfriend was reportedly charged with possession of marijuana. The account in question, @peoriamayor, showed a photo and official contact information of the town mayor, Jim Ardis, but published a stream of tweets about prostitutes, drinking and drugs that would be more befitting of the mayor of Toronto. The account has reportedly been suspended for several weeks.
