The days of police blotter columns in newspapers are long gone, but that doesn’t mean police departments are taking a backseat approach when it comes to sharing information with the public.
In today’s digital age, the police have at their disposable a variety of tools to instantly share information with the public – and they aren’t shy about taking advantage of these tools.
Long before email and the Internet, there was the fax machine (you know, that clunky box that makes a ton of noise and looks a bit like a printer with a phone attached?).
This was the “gadget” the New Westminster Police Department used to send out press releases and bulletins to the local press, who would then share that information in the newspaper the next day.
But gone are the days of the middleman.
Today, the department uses several social media tools, including Twitter and Facebook to instantly share information with the public.
Sgt. Diana McDaniel has been the media spokesperson for the New West department since January 2012, a position that falls under the banner of community services. During her short time in the role, she has seen the department actively jump on the social media bandwagon and make it their own.
“We’ve definitely adopted the social media platform since I started this job,” she said. “So (we have a) brand new website, Facebook and Twitter.”
McDaniel isn’t alone in this endeavor. She gets help from Susan Jung, a city employee who coordinates much of the department’s online platforms, everything from its Facebook page and Twitter feed to posting bulletins on the website.
Together McDaniel and Jung actively reach out to the community in an attempt to make connections with the people the department serves 24/7. Because of New West’s relatively small population, this type of active engagement is something both McDaniel and Jung think is very important.
“And not only that, but it helps us to have a relationship with the public and it kind of humanizes the police department,” McDaniel added.
One of the unique things the department has done in an attempt to engage more with the local community is hold a tweet-along where McDaniel tagged along with a patrol officer and tweeted about the various calls they attend – kind of like a police blotter column for the modern era.
“It was very, very well received,” she said. “So things like that where the public can really get a snapshot of who we are, what we do and the types of things that we’re doing out there for the public on a regular basis. … It gives them an inside view of something that remains kind of a mystery sometimes to people. So that transparency is something we value a lot as a police agency.”
In keeping with that, McDaniel, along with Staff Sgt. Paul Hyland, are tasked with sharing information about police investigations and incidents with the public – what information is shared and why, is left up to either McDaniel or Hyland.
“It might be to keep the public safe, it might be just to keep them informed and to be transparent as a police agency, so the public is aware and made aware of the types of investigations that we’re working on,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel or Hyland go through watch summaries and reports from previous shifts and pull out incidents they think may be of interest to the public. They’ll also put out a release if there is some type of public demand for it or if an officer has hit a wall in an investigation.
“Sometimes they (the investigators) have to work through an investigation, and we’re used as a tool as part of that investigation,” she said.
Putting out a release on an ongoing investigation almost always guarantees a response from the public and often leads to an arrest or information on a suspect or missing person, McDaniel added.
This type of instant communication with the community allows the department to control the information that’s shared and allows McDaniel and her team to ensure the information is accurate. One event in particular comes to mind for McDaniel and Jung – the Starlight Casino shooting.
During the incident, which took place on Nov. 8, 2012, McDaniel was on the scene in Queensborough and was communicating back to Jung in the office who was then tweeting out live updates as they came in.
“We thought that was really important to do that so that people knew what was going on and people knew they could trust the information that was coming out,” Jung said.
And soon it won’t just be McDaniel, Jung or Hyland using the department’s Twitter feed to pass on info to the community. The department is beginning a new initiative this month to train all its staff sergeants to use social media while on shift.
“Once they are, we’re going to identify members on shift so when you ask, ‘How can we monitor 24/7?’ Well, that watch commander position is a 24/7 position,” McDaniel said. “We want to have them (officers) engage the public 24/7.”
