Seattle Cops and Twitter

As a City with a reputation for introducing innovative technology solutions, it shouldn't come as a suprise that the Seattle Police Department recently armed its officers with a very unique weapon: Twitter. Except for removal of sex crime related reports, and a one hour system delay, Seattle Police are now broadcasting happenings on the street in real-time via this social media tool. Consequently, with electrons instead of pen and paper being used to record crime events and simultaneously distribute that information to Seattle's public, the "Tweets-by-beat" program is being called "trailblazing" and "the most ambitious effort of its kind in the nation." For more, use the link below:

Hey, @SeattlePD: What’s the Latest? (New York Times, October 1, 2012)

Tweets-by-beat (Seattle Police real-time site)

Comment: A very cool effort by the City of Seattle - and an essential step in developing a Common Operating Picture (COP) in any community. As demonstrated here, members of the Emergency Services Sector (ESS) are making their "what's happening now" data readily available in a way that could be used to create an effective COP. Along that line of thought, the Seattle Police Department has also deployed a very nice mapping interface for crime visualization.  Example and link below:

My Neighborhood Map