New Monrovia Police Chief to Explore Crime Mapping and Social Media

Interim Police Chief Jim Hunt said Tuesday that he is exploring the use of online crime mapping and social media tools to inform the public of local crimes, potentially following in the footsteps of other local departments that send out crime updates electronically.

Hunt will meet with Arcadia Police Department officials Wednesday to learn more about how they use social media tools like Twitter and crimemapping.com to apprise citizens of the criminal activity going on in their community, he said.

"I've got to see what the costs are and how much time it will take," Hunt said after Tuesday's City Council meeting.

Councilman Tom Adams called on Hunt during the meeting to consider using crimemapping.com, an online service that maps out the locations of crimes that have been committed in the community. Cities like Arcadia and Pasadena use the site to map out their crime data, as do other departments across the country.

"I know a lot of cities and communities are using that as a way to inform their community of what's going on," Adams said.

Hunt said that he got the idea to approach Arcadia about its social media strategy from reading . In the post, Zgonc argued that the Monrovia police and fire departments could do a better job of informing residents about public safety issues by using social media.

"What I would like ... is to see them jump into the communication age and become more forthright and engaging with us about what is going on in town," Zgonc wrote.

The Arcadia Police Department maintains a Twitter feed that it uses to send out updates about crimes and arrests, as well as its own blog. The department's Twitter account has more than 1,600 followers.

Hunt said he likes the site crimemapping.com and its ability to show where local crimes have occurred. Distinct icons like syringes or burglar masks used to identify specific types of crimes are overlayed on top of an interactive map, and clicking on the icons produces a box showing data like the time, date and block number of the crime.

"Crime data is extracted on a regular basis from each department's records system so that the information being viewed through a web browser is the most current available," according to crimemapping.com. "This data is always verified for accuracy and all address information is generalized by block in order to help ensure privacy is protected."

Currently, a weekly email newsletter serves as the only written source of information that the department releases about local crimes and police responses.