When major media outlets (incorrectly) identified the name of the suspect in Friday's elementary school massacre, journalists immediately flocked to Facebook to learn more about him. Pictures, status updates, comments — anything that might give more insight into the killer's motivations.

Putting aside the media frenzy and subsequent reflection over what went wrong in newsrooms on Friday, journalists aren't the only ones who have learned to check social media for more information about a suspect — the police are doing it too.

Mashable reached out to Facebook, Twitter and several law enforcement agencies to learn more about what happens behind-the-scenes immediately following a high-profile crime.

Most, unfortunately, were unwilling to divulge much in the way of procedural information. However, a Facebook spokesperson did point us to a public-facing site teaching police how to request access to a suspect's info. Here's how it's done:

Police need a subpoena in order to access "basic subscriber records" including name, length of service, credit card information, email address(es), and a recent login/logout IP address(es). For the next level of information, including message headers and some IP addresses, a court order is required.

For the real bounty — messages, photos, videos, wall posts, and location information — a search warrant is required.

What if a user who commits a crime goes home and deletes his or her account? Once Facebook is made aware that a user is the subject of an official police investigation, the company "takes steps" to preserve that user's account information for 90 days — even, apparently, if the user tries to delete his or her account in that time.

Facebook does, however, stipulate that it will only find data which it is "reasonably able to locate and retrieve."

If the police want the Facebook information of a suspect but don't want to tip off that suspect that he or she is being investigated, Facebook requires "an appropriate court order or other process establishing that notice is prohibited." But even that doesn't ensure total secrecy: if Facebook determines the user in question is violating the company's terms of use, it may notifiy the user it is "aware of their misconduct," potentially tipping law enforcement's hand.

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Facebook and other social media records are becoming an everyday element of evidence in many criminal cases. Twitter messages, for example, were instrumental in an Occupy protestor's recent decision to plead guilty to disorderly conduct.

It remains unclear how law enforcement and social media companies were together to keep suspects' profiles away from the prying eyes of the media and curious digital snoopers — it's a fair bet they do cooperate, but both sides of the partnership are tight-lipped about the arrangement.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Nredmond