Tulsa Neighborhoods Using Facebook As 'Online Neighborhood Watch'

Any information is valuable in the search for a sexual assaulter that has attacked eight women in Tulsa. Now, many are turning to social media to keep safe, where neighbors are posting every suspicious activity on their streets.

Police are using a mobile site as the central point for their investigation, but some valuable information that could lead them to the attacker is being documented on Facebook.

The neighborhood watch is now online as neighbors are posting any and all unusual activity on pages for anyone and everyone to see.

Meg Perdue with the Brookside Neighborhood Association said its Facebook page is taking off and has helped solve crimes before.

"We actually, I believe, caught a person that was burglarizing cars because we posted that on the Facebook," she said.

She hopes one of the tips will lead police to the sexual assaulter.

The Tulsa Midtown Alert Neighbors page also has dozens of posts; and many other neighborhoods have a page just like it. The pages are becoming a forum for suspicious activity.

"be on the LookOut 33rd PL close to Riverside. Chubby Man with black backpack... Start looking and call police. Could be a prowler," one commenter wrote.

Another wrote, "a man matching the description of the rapist was in the driveway peering around the house...I called tpd."

Kathryn Lyons operates the page and said she nearly canceled it due to inactivity a few weeks ago, but with a serial sexual assaulter at large, the likes are multiplying.

The posts are pouring in too, flooding the Midtown Alert Neighbors Facebook page which has received 1,000 likes, in just the past 24 hours.

Lyons said many people are sharing their safety tips.

"This one woman came up with, 'I'm going to put a size 14 shoe on my porch,' so I thought that was kind of a good idea," she said.

She even shares the posts with Tulsa police.

"They say that you're doing a good job, it's actually helpful," said Lyons.

Perdue said, "The more we connect, no matter how we connect, I believe that the less likely it is for a crime to be committed right under our nose."

At times, it can seem like a little much, as posts of suspicious people in neighborhoods come in at least every hour, but the women said it's making people more aware, and, as we all know, knowledge is power.