"Society has accepted social media as a major form of communication, and so have I," a statement prepared by a detective in the Clayton County Police Department reads. Word got out that his department used Facebook to notify a woman of her son's death.
The statement, provided to TODAY, explains that "several traditional attempts" were made to notify the family of 30-year-old Ricky Lamb after the man died.
"We make every possible attempt to apply best practices when handling these sensitive matters," the statement from the department, near Atlanta, Ga., emphasizes. After the traditional notification attempts failed, officers took to Facebook, sending the deceased's mother a private message via the social network.
