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Canadian police get tweets for US Republican convention

Comments directed to Donald Trump floods Newfoundland police Twitter account

20.07.2016 - Update : 20.07.2016
Canadian police get tweets for US Republican convention FILE PHOTO

Canada

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Ont. 

Canada’s Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) has no connection to Donald Trump, but tweets meant for the Republican presidential candidate are pouring into the police, Canadian media reported, Wednesday.

Misdirected tweets began about two years ago, but the tweets went from tiny to torrential when the Republican National Convention got underway this week in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Newfoundland police really, really wish the tidal wave of tweets would dry up – the force shares the acronym RCN with the Republican National Convention – and be arrested, as in stopped.

“We have nothing to do with @realDonaldTrump. We’re a Canadian police service in Newfoundland and Labrador,” the force tweeted.

To prove the fact it is Canadian, the force added a hashtag that contained the quintessential Canadian word “eh” – #CanadaEh twitter.com/rez_zergani/st.

But the tweets keep coming, because if a user types in RNC, the first auto-complete suggestion that comes up is @RNC_PoliceNL.

Users want to tweet to #RNCinCLE, the Republican hashtag for discussions, but instead blast vulgarities and criticism meant for candidate Trump to the Canada cop department.

It has created a headache for the police and particularly for RCN Constable Geoff Higdon, who is in charge of the Newfoundland constabulary Twitter account.

“We see our news feed and our notifications just completely jammed with mentions to us regarding either love or hatred toward Donald Trump,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s national broadcaster.

Higdon realizes police are handcuffed and can do little about it, and it does have a comedic side.

“During the first day of the convention – it was really funny – there was a video shared of a bunch of police officers, I’m assuming Cleveland police officers, who were on bicycle duty,” he said. “People tweeted to us, thanking us for keeping the convention safe … it is comical – there’s not really much you can do.”

Tweets also have been critical of aspects of the Republican convention, including the plagiarism brouhaha surrounding the similarity of Melania Trump’s speech to one given by Michelle Obama eight years ago.

“We’ve been getting a lot of flack for allowing Donald Trump’s wife to use parts from Mrs. Obama’s speech,” Higdon said. “We got dragged into the whole open carry (gun) laws in the U.S. there for a few days.”

The police lay claim to the RNC Twitter handle and say the Republicans are relative newcomers to the acronym.

“We figured, ‘Hey, we’ve been here since 1729, maybe we’ve beaten everybody to it,’” Higdon said.

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