But Ferguson will have a place in history, I think, for a couple of reasons. It may be one of the earliest instances where tweets may form an important part of the investigation and potential prosecution. Mashable carried a story of the series of tweets provided by a rapper named Thee Pharoah who live tweeted the scene outside his apartment window. I suspect there have been cases where tweeters were called to testify and where tweets may have been used in court. But given the profile of this case and the almost certain focus of attention on the investigation and legal action to follow, the profile of social media as an important element of our criminal justice system will likely be raised.
The second reason is that the Ferguson police's inept response and communication, even as the situation spun out of control, will make it clear that ignoring the realities of public communication today can be dangerous. I'm not sure this point can be overstated. For a long time we heard about police chiefs, fire chiefs and emergency management leaders who pooh-poohed social media, digital communications and all the changes. While frustrating to many beneath them, it seemed their prerogative to decide how they wanted to handle things. There was no law against being a Luddite. I think that has changed with Ferguson.
The huge gap between the Ferguson police's media strategy and the realities of today's public communication was magnificently spelled out in a post by Joel Shults, retired police chief for Adams State University in Colorado, on policeone.com. This is a post worthy of printing out and pinning to the bulletin board in most police stations. It should be required reading not only for senior police leaders, but fire as well.
The fact is, living in the past when it comes to public communication is no longer an option. It's a danger, a risk to your community, a risk to property and to lives. Chiefs who insist on operating communications like we live in the days of putting out press releases and standing in front of news cameras in organized press conferences need to be replaced, because they are putting their citizens and communities at risk.
That may be a bold statement, but I think Ferguson makes the case for it. Surely, there were many problems in Ferguson. The story now widely circulating about police wrongfully arresting a man, beating him up and then charging him with four counts of property damage because his blood got on the uniforms of the four officers beating him is now being widely circulated. So the Luddites might be saying, rightfully, that Ferguson's problems go much deeper than failing to use Twitter. That is correct, however, it doesn't change the fact that appropriate response both in messaging and message delivery likely would have substantially influenced the unrest that followed the initial shooting. And that is the lesson that emergency communicators must take from this.
