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Thank a cop on Thursday, every day

#thankacopthur is now #tacop

Last Wednesday I was listening to Glenn Beck on the Fox News Channel. I don’t remember what he was talking with regard to cops but he said something that got my attention. Beck said, “Instead of criticizing cops why don’t we thank them?” An idea was born and I tweeted it immediately:

I sent a DM (direct message) to my friend, Lauri Stevens, to see what she thought about the idea. She immediately tweeted me back:

I knew if the social media guru to cops liked the idea we were on to something. Even the day before the first Thank-A-Cop Thursday, the response from other tweeps across the U.S. was immediate:

Thank-A-Cop Thursday received immediate international support:

Thank-A-Cop Thursday’s debut steamrolled across Twitter:

John Solomon at “In Case of Emergency” blog wrote a post about Thank-A-Cop Thursday:

I lost track of how many times #ThankACopThur was RTd and shared with others in the Twitterverse..

The end result of Thank-A-Cop Thursday? Cops were encouraged and felt appreciated.

The original hashtag for Thank-A-Cop Thursday was #ThankACopThur . Based on the feedback we received from tweeps we determined that we needed to shorten the hashtag. The new hashtag for Thank-A-Cop Thursday is now #TACOP

The 2nd Thank-A-Cop-Thursday is this Thursday. Please join tweeps across the world as we say “thanks” to cops, police, law enforcement and their families for their service and sacrifice.

Mike Ellis is an emergency management professional with an acute appreciation for, and knowledge of the use of social media for communicating during emergencies. Currently, he is the Customer Relationship Manager for Emergency Communications Network (ECN). Ellis has been with ECN for 10 years. Prior to ECN, Ellis was a Promotion and Marketing Director for 18 years in the radio industry.

New Tab on Police Facebook Pages for anonymous tip/crime reporting

Jeff Brown

It’s a simple thing really, writing an FBML (Facebook markup language) script for a new Facebook tab. That’s what Jeff Brown did. “It’s not rocket science”, he said and he’s right. But still, HE DID it. It may not be rocket science, but with 500 million Facebook users, putting a tab to allow citizens to leave a crime tip on a Facebook page is positively brilliant.

Brown is a computer training consultant in Truro Heights, Nova Scotia.  His company is Alpha Computer Training and Consulting. He was talking with Constable Scott Mills (Toronto Police) one day when they cooked up the idea. They knew that having a system to report crime within Facebook was a bad idea because Facebook founder and CEO Zuckerburg isn’t exactly known for privacy protection. “I realized all we had to do was create a button that could open the form.” So Brown worked with Kevin Anderson, the founder of Tipsoft (now owned by CrimeReports), which is the engine behind the CrimeStoppers anonymous tip service.

Brown installed the tab on the CrimeStoppers International (CSIWorld) Facebook page. Then he called me. Together we’re working with any law enforcement agency, who’s already a Tipsoft client, to install the tab on their Facebook pages. While it’s possible to place the tab on any Facebook page, Kevin Anderson pointed out, “to do so would be against the Tipsoft Terms of Service”. Furthermore, said Anderson, the national receiver center for those tips would get overloaded. By the way, all it takes to be a client for Tipsoft’s webtips is $600 a year.

Jeff wrote directions which include the FBML script. If you’re somewhat technical you can do it yourself. But if you need a hand, either one of us will help. You’ll need a logo not wider than 520 pixels. Store the logo on a server somewhere and copy and paste the URL (web address) to the logo so it’s handy for later. You’ll need the URL for the webtip page from your CrimeStopper program. You install FBML with one click, copy and paste Jeff’s script, replace the two URL’s with yours, and you’re done.

The Arcadia Police Dept is in Los Angeles County and has created a tab on its Facebook page which takes a citizen to the LA Regional CrimeStoppers webtip form. I worked with Sgt Tom LeVeque to install it in about 15 minutes last week.

LeVeque acknowledged the installation was “a breeze. Even with my minimal computer expertise, I was able to cut, paste, and substitute some links into the code and we were done in minutes.” LeVeque said having the tab on his PD Facebook just makes sense. “I think this is a great example of how the use of Social Media can be a force multiplier in community outreach and communication.  Not only do our 340+ fans have access to us, but any visitor to our Facebook page now has the ability to speak, even anonymously, to the Arcadia Police Department about criminal activity.  This type of service furthers our motto, ‘Making a Difference.’”

Any agency which has a tip reporting system can install this tab on its Facebook page. Brown and I are expecting that once word gets out, many PD’s will want to. “I’m pretty sure we’ll see wide-scale adoption of this, it’s just too easy”, he said. It really is easy.  But we’re here to help if you need it. If you install the tab at your agency, please leave us a note here to tell us how it went.

Jeff is at info@alphacomputer.ca

I’m at lauri@lawscomm.net or 978.764.9887

The SMILE’n Continues

When The SMILE Conference occurred in Washington D.C. in April, everyone in the room knew we were on to something. Social media law officers from four countries came to speak, attend, learn and connect. The energy was high throughout the 3 days. We had chiefs, deputy chiefs, PIOs, Investigators, Constables, every rank. But rank went out the window for the time being and everyone knew they had as much to learn from each other and they could teach someone else.

#SMILEcon #2 is on the way

LAwS Communications is working to identify several possible locations for future conferences all over the world. But the next stop is Santa Monica. Chief Tim Jackman has graciously offered his agency as host of The SMILE Conference. We’ll be in session from Jan 10-12 at the RAND Center right across the street from the PD. January on the beach in southern Cal? How bad can that be?

Same name, widening the concept

When we dreamed up the first SMILE Conference we played around with several website name choices and when S-M-I-L-E occurred to us, we looked no further. Standing for “Social Media in Law Enforcement”, it was perfect. However, it was during the conference in D.C. when several of us realized it’s about more than social media and that a tweak to the acronym was in order. It is now known as “Social Media the Internet and Law Enforcement”.

To that end, we’ll cover community engagement, reputation management and the many operational pieces on Monday of the conference. On Tuesday we’ll discover the numerous applications in investigations. On Wednesday, we’re exploring related topics that encompass social media like possibly interoperability, information management, risk prediction, and others. In fact, we would welcome your input as we put the agenda together. Each day starts with an hour and 45 minutes of training.

Registration is open

If you know for sure you’ll be attending, register before Sept 30th. We’ve set the conference rates as low as possible and until then, it’s just $399. Oct 1-Nov 30 the rate will be $499 and then it goes to the full rate of $599 and $649 at the door. However, there will be discounts available through PoliceOne and possibly others off the full rate.

Speakers

Some of the speakers from D.C. will be returning, include Chris Duque (retired Honolulu) Mike Bostic (Raytheon) Emily Williams (LAFD) Michael Vallez (Altegrity) Scott Mills (Toronto PD) Todd Shipley (VereSoftware)  Mike Alderson (Open Eye – UK) and others. New faces include Santa Monica’s Chief Jackman, who will be on hand not only as our host but also as a speaker together with Captain Rich Lucero of the Fremont PD. Sgt Tom LeVeque (Arcadia PD) will also be on hand.

We hope to see you at The SMILE Conference.

@mikebostic on ConnectedCOPS: thePodcast

Mike Bostic

Mike Bostic was first very reluctant to embrace social media. It was part of his mandate when he first joined Raytheon in 2008. But he saw the benefits instantly. “My friends in law enforcement started laughing at me for a little while. Until we started to talking to them about the potential applications and the way that they could communicate with their community. The ones I know pretty well aren’t laughing any more.”

In the latest ConnectedCOPS Podcast Mike talked with me about a bit about social media and the importance for law enforcement to use it to build relationships.  While some leaders may think implementing social media is an imposition, Bostic said real leaders should welcome the opportunity, adding, “A real leader wants to explain to people why we’re doing what we’re doing, and how we’re doing it and why we’re doing it. Because if I’m doing it wrong. The best thing about decisions is that you can make a new one as long as you’re smart enough to listen to your people.” It’s a whole new channel of information that you’ve never had before.

Bostic said if he were in law enforcement today, he’d allow any officer in the department to represent the agency but spoke to the importance of education and training “they’re allowed to take lives, justifiable shootings, when they’re allowed to arrest when they’re allowed to take people’s property…. And yet we resist a Twitter site.  So there’s a disconnect there. If we can train them to do those three things, training them to do the right things in social media is a lot easier”.

We also discussed the importance of math and science education for cops as well as a couple projects Mike is working on at Raytheon. Click the podcast button on the left column to hear the interview.

Chatroulette founder says he's calling the cops

Chatroulete has been around for less then a year but immediately became a haven for perverts. The service was built by 17 year old Andrey Ternovskiy, from Moscow. Users with a webcam installed log in and have random conversations with people all over the world and randomly enough, you come face to face with some guy’s penis. Estimates are from 10-13 percent of Chatroulette users fit this pervert profile.

Ternovskiy just announced he wants help from law enforcement. He’s collecting IP addresses, screen shots and logos and plans to report inappropriate behavior to law enforcement, just exactly which law enforcement agency doesn’t seem to be specified. With all the international aspects, what law enforcement agency could actually handle such cases? There’s no question that many local and national pornography and indecency laws are being broken through the content being transmitted. But how would any police agency really enforce them, especially given the lack of information required to open a Chatroulette account? The victim could be in one country, the pervert in a second and the Chatroulette servers, likely in yet another. It isn’t at all clear that Ternovskiy’s collection of IP addresses is really going to GO anywhere.

The site also bears the warning:

“Broadcasting inappropriate content to minors is a violation of both US and UN law. We are actively cooperating with law enforcement agencies.”


While the video chat service has been severely criticized for its illicit content, it has also received significant notoriety for all the nudity. Jon Stewart has a made good fun of the site  and SouthPark has parodied it, among others. Without all the attention over the lewd content, we may never have heard of it.

Ternovskiy, and others have made minor attempts before this to address the problem. He added a report feature banning a user if he is reported 3 times by another user. Business Insider ran a contest earlier in this year with the intent to help Chatroulette pantless predicament. The story, “Chatroulette’s Penis Problem: 8 Cunning Solutions” ran in March, but apparently none of the 8 was the right solution.

Then, in June TechCrunch reported the site was implementing a ‘penis-detection software algorithm”. (Which left me to wonder how would you like to be the guy the software “missed” ie: no penis detected. Probably way too much insight into the working of my brain there).

Ternovskiy is reportedly working a few potential partners to develop new features and figure out a way to turn it into a viable business. Meanwhile, after experiencing explosive growth since its inception 8 months ago, May was the first month visitor numbers were down.   Numbers down or not, it hasn’t gone away and it seems like the attempts to remedy the penis issue are dubious at best. It appears they do more to increase publicity about the site than actually address the issue. It’s still a parental nightmare and a nearly impossible enforcement issue for police.

IMHO: In the end, the responsible party is Ternovskiy himself. As the site’s (underage) owner, he bears responsibility for the content of his site. While Ternovskiy reportedly gave little or no thought to the business application to the site when he built it. His one goal was to make it big in America.

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