Urbana Police  Department Lt. Rich Surles took to Twitter to educate and interact with participants of Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day.

Surles is the man behind the Urbana’s Police’s tweets Friday, which combined humor and education to reach out to the public.

Urbana Police, along with the Champaign Police Department and the University Police Department, focused on education in their tweets, Surles said.

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“We compiled a list of things that we were going to send out in advance,” Surles said. “A lot of it was very educational in terms of, ‘If this is what you’ll do, these are the consequences.’”

Upon seeing some of the tweets from participants that day, Surles decided to respond.

“In regards to the tweets, there were a couple of exchanges that I had with specific people, and it was because I couldn’t believe they were saying some of these things,” Surles said. “So that’s why I responded the way I did.”

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Jokes aside, Surles said he hopes the outreach on social media helped keep participants safe.

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“I hope that the folks coming to Unofficial are seeing our information and take it and use it. I hope those things really get out there, like the number for Safe Rides,” Surles said. “I hope they focused on the really important part other than me being sarcastic.”