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Will DSM Police Also Use Twitter and Facebook to Track Down Bike Thieves?
I’m not saying that we have a problem with bike theft downtown, but if we did, maybe the Des Moines Police Department could take a page out of the Boston Police Department’s playbook and use social media tools, such as Twitter and Facebook for tracking downtown stolen bikes.
The Stolen Bikes Boston Community Alert initiative is a simple albeit wise way to let you report your stolen bike. The site then notifies the police, bike shops, and local security, plus posts to the the City’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Local residents can then follow the Twitter or Facebook accounts and report any sightings of the stolen bikes.
According to police department spokesman, “Leveraging Twitter and Facebook, on top of traditional channels, is a great to way to get the community involved and active in city crime-fighting efforts. The immediate nature of status updates, and their mobile distribution, means that more and more people can have instant access to the bike theft reports, increasing the likelihood that more lost bikes will be recovered.”
Boston Police have been using using Twitter for a while down to help get the word out on crime in the community. Here’s an example tweet from the Boston PD:
“INJURED OFFICER: Officer from district 4 transported to Beth Israel Hospital, human bite to arm, suspect in custody.“
A user named @willcady asked the following:
“@Boston_Police if that was a zombie bite, would you tell us?”
…to which @Boston_Police replied:
“@willcady Yes, absolutely“
I would love to see Judy Bradshaw get the Des Moines Police Department on a similar path. What do you think? Would you follow the Des Moines Police Department on Twitter? Friend them on Facebook?
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Posted under Living Downtown | Last modified on July 22nd, 2009.
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Pete Jones - Desmoinesisnotboring.com on Fri, 24th Jul 2009 6:24 am
This is a great way for these forces to communicate with us for many uses, outside of bike thefts. I know I really enjoy the DmRegisters Tweets about traffic issues or “breaking news.” Those tweets, among others, start a conversation about an issue, say an accident on 235, which brings others in to the conversation to provide first hand updates if they are ‘on the scene.’ I know I have avoided 235 at times because of these updates…
The Police force could use these free options to provide specific information or they could use it to start conversations with people who are out and about. Those conversations could assist in keeping the Police updated on issues around town and effectively increase their presence. For instance, the recent Court Ave Fight…had there been a medium with the Police before hand there could have been potential for someone there to Tweet about the fight, which would potentially provided an opportunity for Police to get there more quickly. As it stands, I believe that fight lasted about a minute…so it may not be a good example…