Audio By Carbonatix
Tempe police hit the social-media jackpot on Monday with a clever meme based on the true tale of a guy who may now regret going that extra mile for his girlfriend.
“CHIVALRY,” reads the caption of a picture of a white, four-door pickup truck in the parking lot of the Tempe Police Department’s Fifth Street headquarters. “Picking up your girlfriend from jail in a stolen truck.”
The post on Twitter also contained the humorous hashtags #wecantmakethisup and #yourchariotawaits.
“It’s kind of gone crazy.” — Officer Naomi Galbraith
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“I guess it was a catchy way of showing what happened,” says Officer Naomi Galbraith of the post, which was published on Twitter and Facebook about 10:45 a.m. Monday.
The Facebook post had been shared about 5,700 times and had 209 comments as of early Tuesday. But it was picked up far and wide by uncounted Facebook users and blogger.
Galbraith says the incident behind the tweet began when an officer pulled into headquarters Monday morning. The pickup, which had rolled past the officer, came up as stolen on the patrol car’s electronic license-plate reader. Other officers arrested the driver after he parked.
He told the officers that he was there to pick up his girlfriend from jail and had borrowed the truck, Galbraith says.
Police aren’t releasing the names of the couple, they say, because the incident is under investigation.
Another department employee came up with the text and idea to put the info out as as meme, Galbraith says: “It’s kind of gone crazy.”
