A police raid to learn who was behind a Twitter account that mocked an Illinois mayor has so far resulted in one arrest, but officials said Monday the investigation continues, as free speech advocates express concern.
The account — @Peoriamayor — was created about nine weeks ago and had about 50 parody tweets, mostly about Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis supposedly using illegal drugs and associating with prostitutes, before Twitter suspended it in mid-March.
The account, which had only about 50 followers, was marked as a parody roughly a week before being suspended. But Peoria police took matters a step further on April 15 by executing a search warrant at the home of a suspect, whom they believed was unlawfully trying to impersonate a public official.