Facebook Status Halts Armed Robbery

A student in Georgia helped thwart an armed robbery in his house, thanks to quick thinking—and Facebook. When the University of Georgia sophomore heard his grandmother scream, he opened his door to see “three hooded guys like all masked in black,” he says. “I grabbed my laptop, went into the attic, and hid." While the burglars tied up his grandmother and sister, he rushed to find a way to get help—but he had left his phone at school, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Facebook was “the only way I could think of contacting someone immediately to call for help,” Nitesh Bhakta said. He typed in a status: “HELP, ROBBERS, NO PHONE.” While some thought it was “a joke,” his best friend believed it and called the police. Upon hearing sirens, the burglars “all kind of fled in their own little directions,” Bhakta noted. Police have nabbed one, and the others shouldn’t be hard to find: Two left their cell phones behind. (In other wacky Facebook news...)