US man responds to his own wanted poster, 'flirts' with police online for days before surrendering

A wanted poster does not usually turn into a week-long flirtation. In late November 2018, however, that is exactly what happened when Anthony Akers, a 38-year-old man in Washington state, decided not to hide from the police, but to talk back to them in public.


The exchange began on 28 November, when the Richland Police Department posted a routine Facebook notice. “Wanted Wednesday! Anthony Akers (38) is wanted by the Department of Corrections for Failure to Comply. If you have any information please call 509-628-0333,” the post read. According to police, Akers had originally been booked for possession of a controlled substance and was now wanted for violating the terms of his probation.

What no one expected was that Akers himself would be among the first to comment.

“Calm down, im going to turn myself in,” he wrote.

Rather than shutting the thread down, the department replied days later with its opening hours, adding a gentle nudge: “Hey Anthony! We haven’t seen you yet.” When Akers still did not appear, officers followed up again, offering help. “Of course if you need a ride you can call non-emergency and we will pick you up.”

Akers remained game. He replied that he was “tying up a couple of loose ends since I will probably be in there for a month” and promised to come in within 48 hours.

When that deadline passed, members of the public began asking questions in the comments. “Has he turned himself in,” one user asked. The police answered simply: “He has not.”

That prompted another apology from Akers, this time leaning fully into the tone the exchange had taken. “I apologize for standing you up,” he wrote. “I will be there no later then lunchtime tomorrow, I know you have no reason to believe me after what i did to you, but I promise that if i dont make it on my own by lunchtime tomorrow I will call for a ride to assist me with my commitment issues.”

Lunchtime came and went again. The department responded with a post that read less like an arrest notice and more like a disappointed text message: “Morose Monday. Dear Anthony, is it us? … We waited, but you didn’t show. … The weekend came and went. We are beginning to think you are not coming. Please call us anytime and we will come to you.”

Nearly a week after the original post, Akers finally followed through. Before walking inside the station, he shared a selfie outside the building. “Here for our date sweetheart,” he captioned it. Shortly afterwards, he confirmed in the comments that he was going in: “Pushing the button, yes a bit later then planned but here and going in. Thank you RPD for letting me do this on my own. See you in a month.”

Cerise Peck, a crime prevention specialist with the Richland Police Department, later told NBC News that the episode was a first. “Sometimes we will see folks tag the wanted person in our post but we don’t ever get the wanted person replying,” she said.


In the end, Akers was taken into custody without incident. The Facebook thread remains, a rare case where a wanted notice became a public conversation, equal parts delay, deflection and dark humour, before ending where it was always meant to: at the police station door.