More Open Police Department Promised Under New Chief

In Arcadia, a police sergeant tweets the latest crime updates. In Glendora, recent calls for service are published right on the police department's website.

Police departments on both sides of Monrovia have embraced social media and technology as tools to inform their citizenry, but the police department here has been slow to adopt the same methods or show the same openness.

But according to Police Chief Jim Hunt and City Manager Scott Ochoa, those days are over.

Hunt was , and both he and Ochoa said that the department will be making a concerted effort to improve access and communication with the media and the public under Hunt's leadership.

Ochoa said Hunt is uniquely capable of empathizing and connecting with community members and that the public should notice a "conscious push on the part of the chief to be utilized and, dare I say, leveraged as a means to reach out to the community."

"I think he is in a position, especially in this age of instant communicaton... (to be) very well suited to lead the department and communicate with the community," Ochoa said.

Hunt's predecessor, Roger Johnson, was known for his top-down managerial style, and under his stewardship. Press releases were hard to come by, and most of the information regularly released by the department came in the form of the .

Hunt when he took over as interim chief in May, and the department will soon post crime reports to crimemapping.com--an online database and mapping system that allows residents to see where the latest crimes occurred in the city.

"We certainly want to use the internet to identify ways to improve our communication with the public," Hunt said.

While the department has not yet decided to use Twitter, Hunt said he intends to revamp the department's website and eventually post calls for service directly on it in the same way Glendora currently does.

"We’re also going to be looking at some opportunities for using technology to improve the way citizens can make reports through online reporting systems and also through video conferencing technology," Hunt said.

In addition to improving communication with the public, better use of technology will allow the department to operate more efficiently, Hunt said. That is especially important in an economic climate that continually forces the city to tighten its budget, he said.

"I think one of the key things for me will be using technology to make things work more efficiently because we’re working with less people because of the economy," Hunt said.