The Online Reward We Won't Be Trying to Collect

If you can be in Washington, New York, London, Stockholm, and Bratislava, within twelve hours, the U.S. State Department has invited you to collect photos of five "suspected jewel thieves" and claim a $5,000 reward.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/state-department-launching-manhunt-contest-using-social-media-with-5000-reward/

Of course the "thieves" will be actors, and the purpose of the game is to test how effective social media can be in real manhunts, so personal safety is no reason not to play--they won't actually shoot you if you snap their pictures.

However, a slow, wary public-access computer has no chance of winning, and so we must regretfully decline to play this game. Drat.

Meanwhile, in real life...suppose a real, armed and dangerous, convicted felon breaks out of the state prison in Jonesville and makes his sinister way to Gate City. Where we recognize him. The last two times I remember reading about a convicted felon getting out of prison for long enough to launch a real manhunt, it didn't sound as if the guy was all that dangerous, but let's say that this time we're convinced that he's a serial murderer who really likes killing people. So I walk into a restaurant--let's say the Subway restaurant, since I've not seen any obnoxious pop-up ads from them during the past month and some friends like their food, and also they had that photo contest--and I see the Evil One sitting in the corner, slurping Diet Coke. Let's suppose further that I have a camera-phone. Do I whip it out, snap his picture, smile and say, "Classic pose! Bet you won a free lunch, at least!"?

Duh. If he really is all that evil, he knows what a camera-phone looks like, he's faster on the draw than I am, and fragments of my camera-phone would be picked out of the skin around the bullet hole.

It's worth thinking about things you might try in this situation. It's worth getting to know a police officer well enough to be able to call him or her directly and leave an innocuous message--no real names, no mention of your friend's police work--that your friend will recognize as indicating some possible need for Preparations and Reinforcements.

But good luck to those who want to try "hunting" actors, anyway. The actors aren't going to hurt any shutterbugs participating in this contest. (Wonder whether the contest rules allow them to pretend to be Sean Penn, though?)