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April 17, 2012 By Jessica Mulholland
Fifteen Philadelphia police officers will soon be trained in the use of a new crime-fighting tool: Twitter. At a City Council hearing last week, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said that with a tight budget, he plans to have his officers make more use of tweeting and other technologies.
Ramsey's communications director, Karima Zedan, says that the department is launching an effort to have officers at all levels tweeting regularly using their smartphones. In this abridged, edited transcript, she discusses why using Twitter to the police's advantage will bring many benefits for Philadelphia's communities.
Our driving philosophy has been: Why not try to pave the way and use [Twitter] as a great tool to connect to people and put a face to the men and women who serve in the department. That's really what Twitter allows us to do. We've been on Twitter (@phillypolice) since September of 2009. It's been a great way to respond to people's questions, to give information to highlight programs that the police department is doing [and] to highlight the good works of people.
We have a very enthusiastic detective on Twitter, Joe Murray, and he's actually been tweeting for probably close to two years. We didn't even know about it. Joe Murray has been connecting to communities in our University City area (where the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University are, and a number of other organizations) and he's gained a following. Right now he has over 1,400 followers, and people have really loved having him as a virtual presence.
If you read @ppdjoemurray's Twitter stream, you see just how engaged he really is. He'll tell you, "I'm not really doing anything more than what people did back in the '50s or '60s, people went out on foot patrol, they went into stores, they went and talked to people. I'm doing the same thing; I'm just doing it with my cellphone."
Joe Murray will help lead the way. He understands the language, he knows how to use it and he's had great success. He's already contributed so greatly to our efforts here, to pushing information out and supporting the department's efforts. He is helping people see that this could be a really great tool. [Officers] will have their own independent accounts, and we really want them to become known in their community.
We expect them to tweet information that is timely and relevant: public safety alerts, crimes in the area. We want them to stay within [the social media policy], so for example, please respect the privacy rights of victims, respect the integrity
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We want to know who is protecting us. We want to share our thoughts and hear theirs. In difficult neighborhoods. If there is a bond and an openness in communication or a direct line to our favorite officer, We can feel comfortable giving information about individuals and crimes knowing that it will be confidential if needed and we can TRUST the PPD once again
Philadelphia Police and Chief Ramsey, and City Official NOT enforcing Penn. state ACTS, city ordinances on dumping/littering. Now #2 "America's Dirtiest City" rated by TRAVEL LEISURE magazine.
not a good idea another thing that will cause some to get in trouble for