A Washington Post headline this week caught my eye: “Police want to stay out of Occupy story.” As quoted in the article: “What keeps police chiefs up at night is that somehow the purpose of the movement will become about actions that the police have taken,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive…
Author Archives: Christa Miller
Help is not a (dirty) 4 letter word
In the rush to understand all the high tech getting thrown at us on a pretty much constant basis, I think we often forget what the tech is actually for: to connect. With other human beings. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, the promise of computer technology was better efficiency. We’d be able to automate rote…
Why and how to add mapping to your cell phone evidence
In May, Law Enforcement Technology published an article, “Mapping Human Behavior,” which used a high-profile California homicide case to show the pivotal role which cell phone evidence played. Wireless expert Jim Cook, quoted in the article, will be presenting at the HTCIA International Training Conference & Expo in September. To promote his lecture via their…
Creating partners in public safety
A couple of articles caught my eye last week. First, there was Good Old Bill’s wistful story of a spontaneous decision to engage in some community policing: People see that little of us these days, other than in a quick fleeting visit or by passing them whilst preoccupied whilst on foot – or more likely…
An exercise in social
Monday last week was something of a first for me. Instead of writing about public relations and social media, I talked about it – to a roomful of about 160 public information officers, media relations officers, command staff and others involved with police information dissemination. The venue: the 2-day Advanced Strategic Communications Seminar, “Social Media…
How free Web tools save one small-town agency from new Nixle fees
Mere months after Cops 2.0 began, a promising new service opened for business. Nixle, a one-way messaging service, meant that police who were still social media-shy could use Twitter, text messaging and other tools to send many different kinds of messages to their citizens — all for free. That’s changed. Last week, Nixle announced that…