Tweet leads to arrest of alleged T flasher

BOSTON -- A helpful tweet led to an arrest on the T.

Police said Lawrence McGuire exposed and fondled himself while riding the Red Line between Davis and Park Street.

Nay Khun, a rider on the T, saw the alleged crime and posted about it on his Twitter account. He also posted a picture of McGuire.

Police learned about the alert, logged on, and within 24 hours recognized and arrested McGuire.

Police said they were grateful for Khun's unique way of alerting them of the alleged crime.

“He felt that the way that he was trying to leverage a police response…was to use Twitter, and in this case it worked quite successfully,” said MBTA Dep. Chief Joseph O'Connor.

Khun had no comment to 7NEWS, but did say via Twitter: “The MBTA police are the real heroes here. Swift work by their finest.”

Local residents were impressed by Khun’s actions.

“For all the junk that’s out there, it’s pretty cool that it can be used to solve crimes,” said one woman.

MBTA General Manager Richard Davey held a press conference inside the Hynes station to report the arrest, and hailed people using Twitter and other social media to fight crime on the T.

MBTA police said they plan on opening its own Twitter account to make it easier for riders to report incidents.

Police also nabbed another suspect in a separate T flashing incident.

John Beyers, 64, was arrested for allegedly exposing himself to riders at the Green Line Reservoir stop on several occasions.

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