US cop wins tweeting award for creative posts

A twitter post in late October from Kansas policeman Ben Gardner featured a large cow curled up on top of a BMW sedan's hood.

The message from the spokesman for the Midwestern US state's highway patrol department was that animals seek warm cars during winter's cold.

"Look around your ride!" he warned in the tweet, with a smiley face.

Gardner's informative and creative posts earned him an accolade on Friday (Nov 24) from the Police Twitter Awards, a United Kingdom-based competition showcasing the importance of Twitter "in building relationships with our communities."

The officer's Twitter profile @TrooperBenKHP, which has nearly 32,000 followers, was the winner of the Best International Account - the only award open to a police-related account outside of the UK.

"It is an honour to be the winner of this category," Gardner said in an acceptance speech video published - where else - on Twitter.

"To be able to build a bridge with the people that I serve, and to reach people outside of my own state of Kansas... has had impact on my life," he said.

Gardner's fellow nominees were a police officer in the state of North Carolina whose twitter account @OfficerMorton includes doughnut jokes and video skits, and a fan account for "Live PD," a police documentary series on US cable television.

The overall winner was Constable Dave Wardell (@Davewardell), an officer from East England who has a police dog named Finn, with more than 11,700 followers.

Other categories included the Best Tweeting Horse Account which was won by West Yorkshire Police Mounted Section (@WYPHorses) and Best Tweeting Informative Police Account for Forth Valley Police in Scotland (@ForthValPolice).