Police dispel active shooter rumor in Port St. Lucie after SWAT operation<\/a><\/p>\nAmong those sharing information was SLC Scanner, a Facebook page with more than 163,000 followers that many Treasure Coast residents rely on for real-time updates about crime, traffic and public safety.<\/p>\n
The page is run by Dan Toback, who accepts information submitted by followers.<\/p>\n
When asked why the information was posted before it was verified, Toback acknowledged the page could have done more before sharing it.<\/p>\n
“I’m a local business owner that sponsors the page. It’s ran by the community. We felt like we should have shared that like we did, but I think we could have done a better job,” he said. <\/p>\n
Toback said the report came from a follower who believed they heard gunshots. He later learned the sounds were flash-bangs used during the SWAT operation.<\/p>\n
“We constantly have this weight on us of valuing their opinion as neighbors, but also being able to put out responsible information. We certainly don’t want to pull on the resources of law enforcement,” Toback said.<\/p>\n
Toback said his team works to balance sharing community concerns with being responsible about the information it publishes. He also pointed out that SLC Scanner is not a news organization or an official government source. <\/p>\n
He said the page includes a disclaimer at the top stating that it does not ‘fact-check or verify the information provided.’<\/p>\n
“We’re just your neighbor reporting what’s going on. You know, in terms of sent in by a fan (SIBAF) and being sent in to us to keep you informed \u2014 unfiltered,” he said.<\/p>\n
Neither law enforcement agency identified a specific source of the misinformation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla (CBS12) \u2014 Social media can be a valuable tool for staying informed, but local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-383491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}