Armed Man with Hostage Updates Facebook Status

Posted 06/23/2011 at 6:39am | by Paul Lilly

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In his latest stand-up special, Happy Thoughts, Daniel Tosh talks about tweeting a recent bout with diarrhea before pausing and asking the audience, "Am I using that website properly?" He's joking, but then again, there's no limit to the insanity of what people can use social networking tools for. A 36-year-old Utah man, for example, taunted police during a standoff by posting updates to his Facebook account.

According to Yahoo News, Jason Valdez took a woman hostage at a motel in a 16-hour, overnight standoff with SWAT teams and used Facebook to keep his friends and family in the loop.

"I'm currently in a standoff ... kinda ugly, but ready for whatever," Valdez wrote. "I love u guyz and if I don't it make it out of here alive [than] I'm in a better place and u were all great friends."

Valdez posted a couple of pictures of him and his "cute" hostage, and sent out a thank you message to a friend that warned him of a SWAT officer hiding in the bushes.

"Thank you homie. Good looking out," Valdez replied.

SWAT eventually stormed the room without firing a shot and ending the 16-hour standoff, but the question of what do with Valdez' Facebook friends who may have helped him out remains. Authorities are debating whether or not to charge them with obstruction of justice.

"We're not sure yet how to deal with it," said Lt. Danielle Croyle.

Image Credit: Mashable