Lawsuit: Trip to Beaufort nail salon ended with customer’s face on police ‘wanted’ poster

The days of “Wanted” posters on telephone poles are long gone: In the age of the internet, police have taken their searches for suspects to social media.

The resulting “attempt to identify” posts are highly successful crime-stopping tools — but the practice has become contentious, linked with the spread of misinformation that can quickly turn to public shaming.

For Bradford and Karristen Gonzalez, a local nail salon’s call to law enforcement led to their faces plastered on the Beaufort Police Department’s social media as wanted criminals. The Beaufort couple is now suing the business for defamation.

Court documents say the couple went to Handy Nail Salon on Boundary Street on July 25, paying with a debit card at the end of their visit. They left the store, unaware that the payment hadn’t been accepted.

Employees then “negligently and recklessly” called the Beaufort Police Department, reporting that the couple had stolen from the business, according to the court summons. They shared surveillance video with police, who posted a screen capture of the couple’s faces with the heading “ATTEMPT TO IDENTIFY” in large, yellow font, along with a case number and phone numbers to contact an investigator about the alleged theft.

Filed Oct. 30, the lawsuit alleges the salon “negligently handled” the transaction by failing to ensure they received the payment, and then “spread the defamation” to police.

Deputy Chief Stephenie Price, a spokesperson for the Beaufort Police Department, said the social media posts are used “after an officer has thoroughly exhausted all avenues to identify a person of interest” in a reported case, and that the practice has proved successful in identifying and catching criminals locally.

Nationwide, the posts come with many names: “Wanted Wednesdays,” “Turn Yourself In Thursdays,” “Felony Fridays.” Some departments only use such social media campaigns for violent crimes like murder and assault, but other agencies — including the Beaufort Police Department — post suspects’ faces for low-level crimes, like shoplifting or fraud.

These posts often depict the incorrect “suspects,” allowing the wrongful accusations to be shared widely across social media. The mistakes lead to “lengthy public shaming” that can ruin job prospects and reputations, according to reporting from the Los Angeles Times.

The Beaufort Police Department edited the Facebook post to remove the Gonzalezes’ photo on Aug. 11, the day after the poster was originally shared — but with 17 shares total, the post had already been widely disseminated before the correction came.

Management from Handy Nail Salon did not respond to a request for comment. Stephen F. DeAntonio, a Charleston attorney representing the Gonzalez family, declined to comment on the case.