Monrovia Police And Fire Departments Need to Join the Communication Age

Seriously I'm not griping about the job they do, in fact I am amazed at how safe we are compared to so many other similar sized cities in LA.  What I would like though is to see them jump into the communication age and become more forthright and engaging with us about what is going on in town.  Certainly it would be nice to know the officers and firefighters that take care of us a little better and what we could do to help them.

What I'm asking isn't unheard of.  All we need to do is look no further than next door at Arcadia PD as a lead in to how many avenues there is for MPD to help us be aware of what is going on and help them with solving crime.  Think of it as an expanded neighborhood watch that goes beyond a weekly Neighborhood Watch update that we get.  

APD has a blog, Nixle, a couple of Twitter accounts that they use to keep the citizens aware and engaged in community safety.  Not only is specific crimes shared looking for potential leads, but nifty things like personal safety, identity theft and other issues of relevance are discussed and shared.  All this goes towards keeping the citizens aware on what to do to protect themselves and reduce crime in the community.

Even the CHP has a Twitter account that shares useful information constantly during the day.  Some has even been used by me for blog posts over at blogging.la.

A fire department with Twitter accounts?  You bet.  Some discuss fire safety and issues concerning that.  Others update the citizens of specific events going on. There is LAFDFiretalk which addresses the former.  On the latter there is the LACFD Twitter that keeps you up to date on the latest fire and fire zones.

I follow a lot of the social media conferences and know that more and more police and fire agency's are getting on the bandwagon to use FB, Twitter, nixel etc., to engage with their communities more.  Certainly we've all heard the anecdotal tales of how twitter has helped in catastrophes such as the twisters in Alabama to keep people aware of what was working or wasn't and where to go for help.  

From where I sit I'd love to see both MPD and MFD be useful a resource in advance of trouble by jumping on the social media bandwagon.  Maybe this is a qualification or consideration for the new MPD chief as part of the vetting process?  What say you on the topic?