Court: Gun Boston Police Saw On Snapchat Can Be Used As Evidence

MASSACHUSETTS — Take a moment to think twice before you post that video of yourself with an illegal gun on Snapchat, then take another moment to think about any recent friend requests you accepted on the popular social media platform.

That was the takeaway from Monday's ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which said Suffolk County prosecutors could use a gun seized from a Roxbury man as evidence after a Boston police gang-unit saw him show the gun in a Snapchat video. The court ruled that Averyk Carrasquillo, who was arrested on gun charges outside a Dorchester gym in 2017, gave up his right to privacy by accepting the police officer's Snapchat friend request about a month before his arrest.

In May 2017, the gang unit officer watched Snapchat videos where Carrasquillo showed the gun while wearing distinctive pants at the Dorchester gym. Police officers were sent to the gym, where they saw Carrasquillo wearing the same pants. They found the gun when they searched him.

Carrasquillo's attorney's argued police violated his Constitutional right against improper search and seizure because his Snapchat channel was set to "private." While the court conceded Carrisquillo could have expected a certain level of privacy because of the setting and the Snapchat feature where posts are designed to disappear, he gave up those rights when he accepted the police officer's account, which had a made up username and the Snapchat logo as its default user icon.

"He appears to have permitted unknown individuals to gain access to his content. For instance, [the officer] was granted access to the defendant's content using a nondescript username that the defendant did not recognize and a default image that evidently was not [the officer's] photograph," the ruling said. "By accepting [the officer's] friend request in those circumstances, the defendant demonstrated that he did not make 'reasonable efforts to corroborate the claims of' those seeking access to his account."