If you are not on twitter and you want to see what this is all about, the Dunwoody Patch has dedicated a simple webpage to watch the tweets as they happen and it can be viewed here.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Dunwoody Police Department is tweeting all of its live calls today. @DunwoodyPolice #dpdcalls
Twitter is a service available on the internet and smart phones whereby you can send a text message to the internet and anyone can sign up to follow what you say. Public two way conversations can be had and photos and websites can also be sent via links provided in the tweet. The Dunwoody Police Department is cutting edge as I can think of no other department who uses social media to the extent that they do.
If you are not on twitter and you want to see what this is all about, the Dunwoody Patch has dedicated a simple webpage to watch the tweets as they happen and it can be viewed here.
If you are not on twitter and you want to see what this is all about, the Dunwoody Patch has dedicated a simple webpage to watch the tweets as they happen and it can be viewed here.
Council approved another increase to the police budget but not everything on the wish list got passed. Public lobbying for more money by the police department started right away with a big tweet fest for black Friday to help highlight the heavy work load. The police tweeted 145 things done in 24 hours. I looked at it as 6 things an hour for the 8 or more people at work in the time frame. I took an even closer look at the tweets: 50 or so 911 calls to check out, 20 or so traffic stops (I count that as about 3 police incidents an hour), 6 calls that were fire or ems related that did not require police and the biggest category was patrolling or business or house checks listed as calls. Patrolling or driving around observing and business and residential checks shouldn't be counted the same as a traffic accident or a 911 call. Is stopping by the BP for a cup of coffee being counted as a business check and thus being used as a "police call" to justify more officers and money? If the city wants to offer security services then hire some security guards for half the cost; we could even call them something smart like Public Safety Techs. Paying some of the metro Atlanta's highest police salaries to do vacation checks when crime is rising in the city; Is it smart? Hire some security guards for the non-police functions could enable the department to re-focus or even reduce its size and expense. Tweeting showed me there is a lot of money to be saved with better management. Dunwoody, just unnecessary government.
ReplyDeleteOther than the ill-advised sting stunt of ticketing drivers on the inadequately marked 285 ramp construction project, I really have no complaints against the Dunwoody Police Department, which is very surprising as I was always against the formation of a City of Dunwoody - thinking it was unnecessary government, that was mostly motivated by the most "refined" of implicit racism.
ReplyDeleteI believe the Dunwoody Police are doing a great job. And I really have no issues with the Dunwoody Police stopping in at different city businesses and being the beneficiaries of donuts, cups of coffee, and exchanging pleasantries with the workers or owners of these establishments.
Back up in Chicago, my wife worked as a night auditor at a hotel whose management welcomed Chicago's Finest with open arms, inundating them with carafes of free coffee and laying out a full Continental breakfast for them throughout the late night and early morning. My wife felt much safer with these random visits to the hotel lobby by these brave police officers.
It's called working a beat - it's how more of the community gets to personally know their police officers and how the police force can obtain a much more tangible grasp on what's going on around town. Twitter is just another communication tool the Dunwoody Police Department is utilizing to work the neighborhood beat, which albeit some might feel is a bit of self-promotion, is also very apropos for this cyber age - and I applaud their efforts for moving in such a progressive direction.
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