People say that crime doesn’t pay. But, to be honest, in this case, the picture that came out kind of made it all worth it.
When the Cape May Police Department in New Jersey heard about a crime in progress, they took action. A small dog got away from her owners and ran around the neighborhood carefree and unattended. She wasn’t a mastermind of the crime.
“Our officer went down and found the dog, picked her up, and brought her back to the station,” Anthony Marino, Cape May Police chief, told The Dodo.
That is where the dog obtained a mugshot — or “pugshot.”
The tiny pup had reached rock bottom — and she appeared to be aware of it. Her mischievous actions had rendered her completely lost. Fortunately, the station’s authorities prepared a backup plan.
“They decided to take her mugshot to get her picture out on social media in kind of a humorous way,” Marino said. “We wanted to find the owner because at that point we had no idea who the owner was.”
Meanwhile, the pug perp was provided with a quiet space to contemplate her actions.
The dog’s mugshot went viral after being shared on Facebook, warning, “This is what happens when you run away from home.”
It quickly gained thousands of likes and shares. That, my friends, did the trick.
“We use social media a lot. It’s a great way to reach a lot of people. You can reach a ton of people. It’s a great way for us to get investigative leads,” Marino said. “And sure enough, someone who saw the Facebook post knew the dog’s owner and got in touch with them. We were able to reunite the dog and her owner. Everyone found it funny, but it ended up finding the owner for us.”
Bean, the dog, is now resting comfortably at home, perhaps learning her lesson.
