Regardless of whether your jurisdiction’s policy is to view videotaping as Constitutionally protected free speech, or a danger to officer safety, stated author Jean Reynolds:

Criminal justice experts suggest the following guidelines can go a long way to head off liability problems arising from citizen videotaping:

1. Always identify yourself immediately as a police officer.
2. Speak clearly and courteously, avoiding inflammatory slang and street talk.
3. Use positive words like “cooperate” and “protect” whenever possible.
4. Describe what you’re doing and why.

One problem: memory in high-stress situations is a tricky thing, as the Force Science Research Center has shown. That’s compounded by the fact that online video is as easily edited as it is recorded.

Weeks following the pepper-spraying of UC/Davis student protesters — once the damage had been done to both agency’s and officers’ reputations — an “extended cut” of the incident surfaced. In fact, the officer responsible for pepper spray use, along with his colleagues, had communicated extensively with students before spraying them.

Emphasize strategic as much as tactical messaging

Telling officers to “behave professionally at all times,” regardless of what they’re doing, where they are or whether they’re being videoed, is important… but overemphasizes the tactical aspect of a situation. Department commanders should also consider strategic aspects, including:

Community culture. Watching the full UC/Davis video was almost like watching newsreel from 1968. The protesters were organized, using professional activist tactics to push the situation in the direction they wanted it to go. Police commanders need to be not just aware of activist organizations in their communities, but also in regular contact with them before, during, and following events — acting “as facilitators rather than a force to be confronted.”

The nature of journalism. Traditional journalists have argued that “citizen journalists,” who are not beholden to the same ethical standards, can edit video, text and images with impunity (among other issues). Professional media, however, are not immune; their businesses are suffering, and they’re hungry for saleable stories. So while police and media may have reached a communication standoff in many communities, helping media understand the specific agency’s point of view is key to helping citizens understand.

The messages they themselves are transmitting — intended or unintended – to their communities. After I posted the LE Today article to my Google+ stream, I received this response from a civilian:

The article alludes that there is a “problem” with the video taping of police?… Why is it a “problem” when citizens do it, but its “for protection” when the all-seeing-eye is on a cruiser’s dashboard? If you’re doing your job honorably, and following protocol, in many cases, that tape just became (or should have) “your protection”, no?… These [four items] sound like things [police officers] should ALWAYS be doing (esp. #1 & 2), regardless of any “problem” or “fear” of recording.

In other words, a “do as I say, not as I do” approach will not encourage the kind of relationship-building which most chiefs agree is essential to community policing.

Open government and officer safety need not be at odds

Officer safety is a real concern, but to my knowledge, no one has been able to point to ambushes that happened because attackers had been studying videos of police tactics. Some of the highest profile ambushes have been crimes of opportunity: four officers killed in a coffee shop, several shot as they sat in their idling cruisers, an officer killed during a traffic stop.

Governments at all levels pay lip service to embracing transparency without understanding what it entails, which is usually a path full of thorns involving personal privacy, sometimes ugly truths, and the hard work needed to fix problems (often despite tight budgets). However, many Americans, both left and right, express fear that we are sliding towards — or living in — a police state. Officer safety is as much a function of public trust as it is tactical prudence. Law enforcement agencies that champion transparency, starting with public scrutiny for their officers’ actions, will go a long way towards assuaging that fear.

photo credit: Cleaner Croydon

To start with, PPD actually did use Twitter to get its message out to Occupiers. More than that, though, was the way PPD commanders engaged in careful planning, including:

• Reciting the First Amendment at each roll call.
• Restricting officers from carrying pepper spray or Tasers, and assuming sole authority for the decision to use force.
• Reminding officers to be ready for citizens to film them.

These measures were notable enough, but what also stood out to me was the way communications planning took into account the way protesters themselves were communicating:

During the trip to Center City, Karima Zedan, the department’s director of strategic communications, monitored the chatter on social media of a building police presence at City Hall. Zedan and Ramsey discussed whether they should send the occupiers a message through the department’s Twitter feed, which they knew the protesters monitored.

“What we should say is just what our goal is, and that’s to safely remove people so construction can begin,” the commissioner said.

As Ramsey’s Car 1 arrived at City Hall about 1 a.m., Zedan sent the tweet.

Indeed, PPD’s Twitter feed from that day was filled with tweets about, and to, Occupy:

It was not all that dissimilar to an October 10-11 effort in Boston, where police moved protesters from an unapproved encampment near an original, agreed-upon site:

Boston Police communicated to protestors the request to vacate the 2nd encampment and return to the original site numerous times throughout the evening via Twitter, flyers and in person [as well as its blog]. The required police action resulted in the arrest of 141 individuals who were charged with Unlawful Assembly or Trespassing.

The agency’s Twitter feed, while more repetitive than Philadelphia’s, similarly used hashtags and other community-oriented language and tone:

For BPD, which has been on the forefront of social media use (including a personal approach rarely seen in law enforcement tweets), this style of communication was not unexpected… although I believe it could’ve been less defensive. See the difference between BPD’s messaging tone, and PPD’s?

Defensive, derisive or merely dismissive: How tone affects your message

Again, simply using Twitter to communicate with Occupy protesters is not the point. While I do, as I said in my last post, wish police were using their feeds more proactively, the fact that communication is being built into encampment removal plans at all is important.

The New York Times’ graphic of the evolution of riot gear shows that communication with protesters was poor and inflexible in 1968, but had given way to negotiation and flexibility by 1995. Although communication is, unfortunately, not mentioned by name in 2011, indirect forms of communication are: managed protests via the permit process, along with “regular use of intimidation.”

It’s these indirect forms of communication that can affect a blog post or Twitter feed, too. In contrast to Boston and Philadelphia police tweets, @RichmondPolice’s appeared to want to downplay any mentions of Occupy by limiting their tweets — even as police bulldozed encampments on Halloween. (Three of those tweets were directed to people who had addressed them first; several of those, directed to the same person.) No Occupy hashtags were used, and the tone (“We’re sorry you have an issue…”) borders on dismissive.

These kinds of nonverbal communication speaks volumes about police officials’ collective approach to people in a certain situation. Look at the way officials in each of these three cities spoke about protesters:

“These people are not criminals,” said Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan, who oversaw the operation. “They are not our enemies.” (Philadelphia)

“We continue to encourage the leadership of Occupy Boston to maintain an open dialogue with authorities in the spirit of coordination and cooperation.” (Boston) (To be fair, less than two months later, Police Commissioner Ed Davis was quoted as saying, “[There are] drugs, vandalism and assaultive behavior. [$723,000 in police overtime is] a significant amount of money…. [which] would be much better spent in neighborhoods where there is firearm violence.”)

Meanwhile, a brief Google search revealed that Richmond police had little to say beyond the fact that nine arrests took place. Again, it would appear that they were trying to downplay the protests in their city.

The work of relationship building

Some believe that police are not there to understand or to communicate with Occupy protesters; rather, their job is to investigate crime and remove encampments when ordered to do so. Indeed, PoliceOne.com reports that police went undercover at Occupy Los Angeles, collecting intelligence on any potential threats to law enforcement.

Even at that, according to the L.A. Times: “From the outset, department officials had struck a collaborative, friendly stance with protesters, and believed they knew what to expect from them [when police stormed the park]…. ” That work paid off; the LAPD was widely praised for its restraint in removing the encampment.

It’s notable, as the Times further reports, that police invited clergy and legal observers to witness police-community interactions. That is not the mark of a police state, nor are agencies that seek to understand the mistakes of others in order to avoid them.

What Philadelphia’s effort showed was that, if police want to avoid reinforcing this belief, any communication plan should not just include logistics — who will communicate, via what channels, how often, etc. — but also careful assessment of:

• What emotions they may inadvertently convey. Even something as short as a tweet can read sarcastic or condescending. Professional police shouldn’t allow this to happen, but are still human, still experience frustration and irritation. Make sure your bloggers, Twitter users and videographers understand how miscommunication can hurt relationship-building efforts, especially in sensitive parts of your community.
• Whether the right people are communicating. Most law enforcement agencies would rather maintain control over their messages by restricting the number of people who can send them, but think about officers who know particular communities or issues better than any other. Consider having them contribute to, if not outright create, content on behalf of your agency.
• How much information you can reasonably transmit, taking into account ongoing operations. Law enforcement agencies are no different from other organizations in their desire to avoid liability. However, a tight communication policy won’t protect your agency from a lawsuit if there are deep systemic problems, and citizens value information — the more of it they have, the more comfortable they feel. So consider sharing what you can about what you do, even if this requires a sustained effort with long-term planning.

Occupy protesters may be, compared to other areas of a community with deeper and longer-standing problems, a nuisance to be dealt with before moving on. But they remain members of the community, and they’ll remember how police approached them — via Twitter, in person, on a picket line or even as part of their group. Whether their memories are positive or negative will drive how they interact with police in the future to solve public safety problems. And so, even when police stick to their core mission, the tone in which they communicate their efforts remains critical to their success.

How has online or in-person tone shaped your interactions with people in your community?

photo credit: breyeschow

“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 Research Forum, a D.C.-based law enforcement think tank.

That’s exactly what is happening. Because of police actions, some OWS supporters view law enforcement as part of the bought-and-paid-for corporate machine; and some Tea Partiers, though they may support actions taken against OWS, have perceived police as part of Big Government.

At this point, the more “outside” police try to be, the more they will fan the flames of misperception on both sides. This is perhaps exemplified in a recent Alternet post (emphasis mine):

PERF organizes conference calls among police officials to discuss areas of common concern. Last year, it held a conference call among police chiefs who were worried that Arizona’s harsh immigration law, SB 1070, would drive a wedge between law enforcement agencies and the immigrant communities they are supposed to protect and serve. Fox “News” ran a story at the time alleging that PERF was some sort of far-left police organization and therefore illegitimate. Now we’re getting a similar story from progressives, which is discouraging.

Shaping the story you’re part of

For three years Cops 2.0 and resources like it have existed to help police learn how to use social media (and other forms of technology) to build relationships with the public. Yet we see little evidence of any such relationships — online or off — in any of the cities where violence, or even nonviolence, has taken place.

What if police used social tools to shape the story they’re already a part of? Not their side — a cop’s-eye perspective on arrests taking place — but the story itself. Consider this largely positive version of PERF and OWS policing from the Las Vegas Sun (emphasis mine):

From Atlanta to Washington, D.C., officials talked about how authorities could make camps safe for protesters and the community. Officials also learned about the kinds of problems they could expect from cities with larger and more established protest encampments….

and:

Interim [Oakland, Calif.] Police Chief Howard Jordan said… a theme was how the atmosphere at the camps had shifted from a haven for peaceful protest to one for criminal behavior.

“Some chiefs had been tolerant of the progressive movement, but that all changed when the criminal element showed up,” Jordan said. “As police, you can’t allow anything that foster criminal activities in any city.”

Jordan said that he and other police brass and city officials began planning last week for officers to remove the camp outside City Hall for a second time after collecting enough evidence that gang activity and an open-air drug market had emerged at the park.

and most telling of all:

Portland (Ore.) Mayor Sam Adams said the primary issue among the mayors was how to get a message to a movement that didn’t have any clear leadership. “A lot of time was spent on how do you effectively communicate with a group that doesn’t have a leader?” Adams said.

Monitoring, influence, and “joining the conversation”

I am quite sure that police are monitoring online conversations for insight and, yes, intelligence about what’s going on in the encampments. But Adams’ question indicates fundamental misunderstanding about the power of social media monitoring in helping an organization learn how — and with whom — to communicate.

Setting up a Facebook page and a Twitter account (or a blog, YouTube channel or podcast) only prepares the agency to keep broadcasting using new channels. In other words, engaging with fans and followers about the content you push is merely a discussion about business as usual.

If police really wanted to use social media to “join the conversation,” they’d join the conversation — the one that matters to the citizens. Not to be political, but to involve protesters in finding the best balance between free speech and the laws that make for civil society.

And, secondarily, to use all that online intelligence to educate themselves about the group. In fact, many movements online are lateral and leaderless — yet nevertheless benefit from informal leaders, or “influencers,” whose opinions and thoughts resonate with many.

So in much the same way that physically blending into the OWS crowds would allow police officers to see informal leaders and group dynamics, learning who’s blogging, tweeting and shooting video (and what they’re writing or shooting about) would help police determine critical online influencers.

And what would they do with that information? For starters, they might solicit those individuals’ help, both online and off. The “criminal element” dilutes OWS’ message too, and while protesters wouldn’t want to be treated as “informers,” they should at least be given the opportunity — as any Neighborhood Watch — to have a hand in protecting one another.

This is the story police should be telling about their role. Chiefs coming together is a start, but making communities safe needs to involve the communities themselves.

Incidentally, these are ideas reflected by former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper in an interview with Democracy Now (emphasis mine):

“…if the police and the community in a democratic society are really working hard—and it is hard work—to forge authentic partnerships rather than this unilateral, paramilitary response to these demonstrations, that the relationship itself serves as a shock absorber. ”

Expanding further in his own article for The Nation, Stamper advocates:

Assuming the necessity of radical structural reform, how do we proceed? By building a progressive police organization, created by rank-and-file officers, “civilian” employees and community representatives. Such an effort would include plans to flatten hierarchies; create a true citizen review board with investigative and subpoena powers; and ensure community participation in all operations, including policy-making, program development, priority-setting and crisis management. In short, cops and citizens would forge an authentic partnership in policing the city. And because partners do not act unilaterally, they would be compelled to keep each other informed, and to build trust and mutual respect—qualities sorely missing from the current equation.

In the business world, marketing strategists talk about the need for “social business,” an organization into which social media are integrated at every possible level — channels that facilitate communication, which in turn promotes the kind of structure Stamper envisions. (It’s worth noting that these are dynamics already appearing among the civilian protesters at OWS.)

A police force whose actions reinforce the worst perceptions is an ineffectual police force, at a time when our society needs leadership more than ever. Leadership isn’t telling people to go shop, or go home, or go get a bath and a job. It’s understanding why people are using demonstration to show they care about their society, and from there, understanding — and talking about — how to work together to keep the peace.

How can you shape the kind of story that develops into dialogue about how you police your community?

photo credit: jorenerene

Likewise among police departments. An agency that respects its citizens enough to communicate with them and make them partners in crime-solving will show that online. An agency that has no respect for citizens… well, it might have Twitter and Facebook pages, but it either won’t use them regularly, or won’t use them appropriately.

That’s why it’s so important that the Huntington Beach (Calif.) Police Department resisted city council member Devin Dwyer’s plan to use the department’s Facebook page to “shame” drivers arrested for DWI. An Associated Press article noted:

Police spokesman Lt. Russell Reinhart said that since launching its Facebook page in November, officers have found it to be a valuable way of getting information to the public and soliciting tips on tough cases.

A couple of DUI suspect mug shots have been posted, but they were from egregious cases where police thought the public could be at immediate risk from the suspect. Reinhart fears Facebook fans could be turned off by the routine public shaming of all repeat DUI offenders.

This is not just a gut sense on his part, but rather one based on page analytics: “Our social media presence is just a few months old and we have had a steady growth of fans and followers,” he told me. “The administrative side of Facebook shows the number of views and impressions is growing steadily as well.  The feedback is all positive from our community.  Using those tools as a measurement, we are doing the right thing for the right reason.”

Different definitions of “public safety”

This debate shows how critical it is for goals and strategy to come before the tactics. If you jump on social media without knowing what you want your public to take away from it – and then, what you want them to do with the information – it will be harder to articulate why a politician’s demand “feels wrong,” and easier to cave to that demand.

This is especially true when the demand is grounded in a different perspective on public safety. As it turned out in a council debate, the issues on both sides are complex. Among the council members’ reasons for opposition:

• Posting pictures, even of habitual offenders, could shame families as well as offenders and increase the risk for bullying or cyberbullying of kids who have tried to hide the family secret.
• Huntington Beach, having marketed itself as a fun tourist destination, should not hurt that image by appearing to be a “Footloose” kind of town.
• Conversely, the additional publicity could hurt the city’s image by showing it has a DUI problem.

On the other hand, Dwyer himself pointed out that he had received many letters of support from families with alcoholics, who told him that shaming could be another tool in a family’s – and a community’s – intervention toolbox. He also felt that the shaming could be part of the agency’s own arsenal, together with existing saturation patrols, training for restaurant/bar owners and servers, and other prevention methods.

Social presence starts with values

HBPD was able to disagree because it had already decided on how to use its Facebook page. “We never disagreed on the public safety issue of those individuals on the road who are DUI,” Reinhart says. However, “Shaming is a form of punishment and law enforcement’s role in society is not to hand out punishment.” Posting all DUIs, or even all habitual offenders, could dilute the page’s overall focus and distract fans from paying attention to public safety as a whole.

Indeed, the Associated Press article went on to note other agencies that have tried – and then rescinded – similar policies. Meanwhile, the council elected (largely, Reinhart says, to end the media “hype” around the issue) to allow the department to continue to use its discretion with its Facebook postings.

Reinhart says of this experience, “For other agencies using or considering social media my recommendation would be to anticipate political pressures on how it should be used and be prepared to support and defend your position. This is no different than the debate on how we dedicate and use all the resources we have in law enforcement.”

At the same time, as Reinhart says, “Social media gives law enforcement the opportunity to help the community we police know the realities, both strengths and weaknesses, of our role in society.” This means that police departments must tread carefully when communicating those realities. People can misconstrue intent via social channels just as traditional media have in the past.

Again, it comes back to values. Transmit those through social and traditional media, and people (including local politicians) will know what you and your agency stand for – for better or worse.

How are you building agency values into your social media work?

photo credit: smemon87

How will you respond to criticism of the way you handle a high-profile case?

An iPhone prototype lost, found, and then sold. A police raid on the home of the blogger who broke the story. In a public relations crisis that is largely eclipsed by the much bigger issues of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and Wall Street fraud, the Silicon Valley-based Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) Task Force is facing criticism for two issues:

First, fears that it violated California’s journalist shield law. And second, that iPhone’s developer Apple, which sits on REACT’s steering committee, influenced the task force’s actions to too great an extent.

Compounding this, REACT seems as ill-prepared to respond as any law enforcement agency that is unused to widespread public criticism. That, I’m afraid, is a much bigger problem than most police might envision. But I’ll get to that in a second.

Messaging vs. communication during crisis

REACT doesn’t have a social media presence, other than an intermittently updated blog. The guestbook on their website has been taken over by criticism, however, in much the same way as Nestle’s Facebook page was by Greenpeace activists.

To REACT’s credit, they aren’t taking the criticism down (assuming they even know about it), but beyond that, haven’t said much. They’ve left communication to the public information officer at the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, their “home base”:

To the extent that high-tech companies or other entities would send representatives to the meetings, they are considered members of the committee. While our records have not shown its attendance as of late, Apple is similarly situated as other companies or entities, which have open invitations to attend committee meetings at any frequency.

Meanwhile, task force leader Michael Sterner was quoted as saying that it was “not uncommon for investigators to make use of intelligence from firms’ internal security teams or to consult with companies’ security personnel as cases move forward” but that the task force does not “take directions on our investigations.” San Mateo chief deputy DA Steve Wagstaffe reminded reporters that Apple was the victim of a crime — a week after the controversy started.

In my opinion, these statements don’t go far enough. They don’t take into account the task force’s actual day-to-day work, its role in combating high-tech crime, the other cases they have worked since their inception — part of whose conditions was a private-sector steering committee. (One wonders if this in itself is the underlying basis for the criticism.) A lot more is in play here.

Crisisblogger Gerald Baron writes about the role of politics in a crisis:

“…the crisis managers [at BP and Goldman Sachs] involved in working these two humongous issues right now, will have a very significant impact on the long term decisions that elected officials will make in these two arenas.”

So, too, decisions affecting REACT and task forces like it. Recall the Heartland data breach, the Google data breach, and others. Breaches like these can lead to intellectual property theft as serious as laying hands on an iPhone prototype. They can also lead to identity theft, as when private personal and bank information in a company’s servers is sold. These affect everyone – not just the companies themselves.

Thus the need for police-private partnerships. In fact, many companies don’t involve police; they’re afraid of bad PR, and they risk that a breach dealt with quietly behind the scenes won’t evolve and go public. Police are working to change these attitudes, but they can’t do it without developing relationships with those companies.

And implications that police-private partnerships are inappropriate won’t help.

A social alternative to traditional crisis communication

Fast, clear, accurate communication is necessary during crisis

An ongoing high-profile investigation is the last thing most law enforcement administrators want to comment on, especially in the real-time social web. However, consider that numerous outlets already are doing so. Thus even if a response cannot talk about the case itself, it can work to mitigate the less wholesome coverage. Hint: that wouldn’t involve getting a subpoena to take down a news article.

So what if REACT had a social presence? It might take some lessons from a counterpart further to the northeast.

The Sacramento Valley High Tech Crimes Task Force has been, at least since 2003 when I first started working with one of its detectives, very media-friendly. This culture is driven by a desire to inform and educate the public; this desire in turn led to the task force’s social presence. Detective Dan Brown daily posts information about cyber crimes like identity theft, trying to educate his publics about threats and how to protect themselves.

In short, he talks about the same hard-to-understand issues that led to the task forces’ creation. So I asked him to speculate on how he would handle it if it was Sac Valley, not REACT, that was involved in the search. Here’s what he had to say:

I would address the question and in this way: The steering committee is made up of 52 law enforcement agencies and approximately 42 private businesses of the “high technology” industry and various financial entities.  The purpose of the steering committee (in summary) is to review task force activity and provide advice, recommendations, strategic input and direction for “task force consideration.”

With about 42 private entities involved, no one entity has more influence over the other and we have not experienced an extreme amount of pressure from any one entity.  The task force operates solely on state grant funding and requires no monetary contributions from any of the private entities.  The task force respects the advice and recommendations of the private industry committee members but we are not beholden to any private corporation.  In the end we make the decisions.

Fortunately, we have a great relationship with the private industry side and are of the same mind on most issues.  So our committee is made up of members who simply want to combat hi-tech crimes.  Political influencing and the pushing of individual agendas has never been an issue; furthermore, it would never be tolerated.

Note that Det. Brown is an investigator, not a PIO. That’s why it can be a mistake to defer to the “home” agency’s PIO, whose responsibilities are much broader than what one task force is doing. That person may have only the barest-bones idea of what a task force does and what it means to the community.

Ideally, then, it will be a task force representative managing task force social sites, and working hand-in-hand with the PIO – and, if necessary, legal teams – to communicate rather than message.

Social strategy and crisis communication

A good communication strategy can keep you from being sunk

When I first started writing this post, I thought it would boil down to strategy. A social presence set up solely to educate, I imagined, would be within its rights not to address bad PR. It would not want negative comments to dilute its educational content stream, or to drown out its longer-term message – especially if its resources were as limited as many agencies’ are.

But social culture is rooted in two-way communication. As many companies and law enforcement agencies broadcast, feedback continues to be important to their publics. Indeed, President Obama’s administration has been criticized for “[seeming] to imagine that releasing information is like a tap that can be turned on and off at their whim.”

This in contrast to his campaign, in which he and his staff tapped into social networking culture to drive a grassroots support for a variety of changes—among them, better government transparency. Thus inconsistent communication fails to generate or maintain trust just as much as no communication.

Which was behind Det. Brown’s response to my question about how he would handle social criticism:

As far as Facebook goes I think I would entertain critical comments as long as the language was appropriate for our younger fans.  I would address each comment as quickly as possible and with the utmost professional tone.  In the case where someone just can’t be satisfied or reasoned with, I would not continue in a back and forth debate, which almost always ends in a negative and unprofessional way, and consider removing the comments.

While our main purpose is to inform and educate, it would be a mistake to operate in such a manner which the public would keep us under the same ole law enforcement stereo type “not approachable, silent because we are hiding something, not truthful in our endeavors, etc.”

I want to improve communication between our task force and the community we serve.  There is no better way for a hi-tech crimes unit to communicate with the members of their community than on the computer.  I believe if you are going to reach out using social network mediums, you should be ready to converse with anyone who contacts you.  Be accessible, appear approachable and be willing to engage.

This means that above all, don’t just be on Facebook and Twitter because everyone else is on Facebook and Twitter. Know what you’re doing there, have a plan for crisis communication, and be the calm in the storm. That’s what builds trust that when you act in the interests of one segment of your community, you’re acting in everyone’s best interest.

Do you have a social crisis communication plan? Tell us about it in the comments!

Images: Ernst_Moeksis, alex-s, & Amanda_M_Hatfield via Flickr

How information sharing can help solve problems

I thought it might be useful to provide an example of what I am talking about when I say that law enforcement agencies can do more – a lot more – with social media than they currently are.

First, Joe the Cop

Joe’s latest blog post concerns the beatdown of a compliant motorist by a police officer. A defensive tactics trainer, Joe provides an excellent perspective into why this might have happened:

Ofc. James Mandarino, “amped up from a vehicle pursuit and believing he was about to confront 2 possibly combative drunks, prepared for the worst as the car pulled over” and ultimately committed himself to use of force. The reason? Possibly, fear. More on that in a second.

Next, Crisisblogger

A not unrelated blog post by Gerald Baron:

If you or your senior execs think that you are at a neutral starting point in public perception when an ugly situation hits, and your goal is to keep at neutral or above, you deal with the crisis in one way. But, what if you are starting the crisis from the perspective of a deep hole–that you are not neutral but public perception is already very negative, how does that impact how you deal with the crisis?

Taking it a step further

What if Joe were the chief of Ofc. Mandarino’s department? He’d be in the position Baron wrote about. He’d be on the defensive. He certainly wouldn’t want to explain his officer’s actions as the product of fear. What member of the public wants to know its chief hires scaredycat cops?

Unless Joe was going to put together a comprehensive argument for why his agency needs a better training budget, and better training.

The Force Science Research Center has published information showing that a police officer’s fear response can actually be rewired with practice, overriding that instinct and replacing it with the instinct to act rather than react.

Joe the Chief, then, might use his blog to publish a graph showing how the recession has impacted his training budget. This might show one of several things:

• A decline in money allocated to training, and a corresponding drop in training.
• A decline in money, but an increase in certain types of training.
• An increase in training money, corresponding with increases in certain types of training (at the expense of others?)
• An increase in money, and an increase in training overall. This might indicate a problem with the officer.

This takes guts

Decreases in money are easy. Joe the Chief can use them to show how his agency needs more funding, which might inspire one or more local businesses to donate money, for instance. Even if the donation must go into the city’s general fund, the city is already under pressure to provide better training for the police department. (Joe the Chief might even work together with Bill the Fire Chief or others to ask for better overall public safety training and education.)

Increases in money are harder, because then it comes down to the chief’s own decision-making. The chief might have decided to allocate funds to training as a response to some other problem – digital evidence, for example, gangs, or narcotics.

This is what we mean by “transparency.” An agency that has communicated its problems all along will be more credible when an officer does something bad; the chief can say, “Clearly we need to devote more to defensive tactics training.”

Of course there are other issues in play. Training is sometimes a matter of officer motivation, as this PoliceOne.com article (more from the FSRC) points out. Officer motivation is a matter of hiring and retaining the right people. Personnel issues sometimes don’t come to light until after the officer has been at work for several years. And no chief wants to, or should, throw his or her personnel under the bus.

Transparency via social media demands a delicate balance between information sharing and leadership. The public and the officers need both. Ideally, the department’s leaders are communicating both internally and publicly.

Yeah, that’s a lot of work. A lot. As Baron wrote in a separate blog post:

We are still fighting today’s public information battles with old strategies and outdated technologies. Until communicators and their leaders understand how much the world has changed, the same mistakes will be repeated.

The job of the crisis communicator today isn’t so much put out a press release and then do some on camera interviews. It is much more about listening, evaluating, advising, and participating in the swirl of information and discussion about the event.

It’s scary. But it can be done… and needs to be done.

What assumptions are you prepared to change about public communications?

Image: Intersection Consulting via Flickr

Photoset collections can round out descriptions of your day-to-day work

Images in police work typically bring to mind two things: crime-scene photos, and mugshots. The first are not releasable to the public. (Or at least, they should not be.) The second are, but by now they’re run-of-the-mill, Joe the Cop’s blog treatments notwithstanding.

So how are images useful for social law enforcement? Take a look at paramedic/trainer Greg Friese’s blog entry about how he’s using photosharing site Flickr.

His example, a set of photos of exit signs, may seem unremarkable. But notice what Greg uses them for: lessons about fire inspections. What might law enforcement do with shared and uploaded photos?

Public service/safety announcements

An agency might choose to run a weekly or monthly PSA topic. Connected to a series of blogs or podcasts, topics might include home security, vehicle theft prevention, child safety, or even things like vehicle stop safety.

What kinds of photosets might you expect to see connected to these topics? If the blog or podcast is about the why and how of safety, the photosets should serve as an illustration of what’s being discussed. For instance:

• Home security: shrubs around doorways and windows, both neatly trimmed and not. Gates and garages left open or unlocked.
• Vehicle theft prevention: expensive items like iPods and GPS devices left on seats. Unlocked doors. Vehicles left running (in winter or summer).
• Child safety: correctly and incorrectly installed car seats. School zone safety (traffic, pedestrian, and other elements). Among preteens and teens, signs of drug use.
• Vehicle stop safety: a staged scene showing each element of a traffic stop (vehicle positioning, driver behavior, etc.) done both correctly and incorrectly. Take into account variables such as having to stop on a narrow two-lane road, multiple passengers, etc.

Whether you ask permission to take these pictures, or take them using abandoned property, your own property, or impounded property, good pictures can often be included in a press release to local media, who will appreciate the additional content.

”Day in the life” sets

The TV show COPS highlights only some police work in some cities. Publics in your community might enjoy seeing more of your officers’ activities on duty—not the staged photos you see in newspapers, but candid snapshots:

• Officers running radar in a part of town that gets frequent complaints. (Post dates and times.)
• Partners might snap photos of each other working on a report or interacting with the public (within reason and with permission).
• Roll call. Refresher training, jokes (again, within reason), or discussion of crime trends could all be of interest.
• Officers interacting with one another or performing some routine function like radar calibration or portable radio inspections.

Don’t be afraid to get silly, as the Kenosha (Wisconsin) Police Department did in its Christmas video. As great pranksters as cops can be, photos of practical jokes could go a long way toward humanizing professional officers (one last time, within reason).

So can cliches. One morning when I was an Explorer, my officer and I pulled into the local Dunkin’ Donuts… making our cruiser the fifth in line. People joke about cops and donuts anyway; that kind of Kodak moment creates a laugh, and wouldn’t do any more damage than the people already talking about seeing it to their friends and coworkers.

Newsworthy events

Snowstorm of the century? Press conference on a high-profile case? Building a new police station or getting new cruisers or other equipment? Police perspective can add extra context. The kind of photo like the one posted on Inspector Gadget’s blog can be snapped just quickly before an officer dives in to help, and images taken of the faces of reporters who are listening to a chief talk are just different enough counterpoint.

Meanwhile, stage by stage photos of the new stationhouse, or shots of new cruisers arriving or new equipment being tested out, can show both officers’ pride in their milestones and what they do to keep the public safe.

As Joe recently pointed out, many things about police work probably shouldn’t see the light of day. Privacy needs to be taken into account, as must potential critics’ (not that you didn’t have those before).

But even officers who take pictures of corpses at crime scenes show a degree of creativity that can’t be ignored. Channel this in the right direction, and your own images can be as powerful as citizens’ in showing your side of police work.

What kinds of images can your officers, detectives and supervisors share about their work in the community?

Image: fdecomite via Flickr

Proper use of social media can make your professionalism shine

Every police administrator knows what damage the wrong YouTube video, tweet, or Facebook status update can do. The public seems drawn to “stupid cop tricks,” and it’s never long before the media find out.

Once that happens, it’s all over. The media grill administrators for answers. Because an internal investigation is probably ongoing, there are none. Media and public alike assume there’s a coverup. The public loses trust in the police, who go on the defensive. Community relations suffers as street cops hide in their cruisers to avoid the criticism.

Or… not

“What were they thinking?” is usually the response to an inappropriate social network posting. Short answer: they weren’t. Why? Because they weren’t thinking the same way an administrator thinks. Why? Because they’re not administrators? That’s a start. But it goes much deeper than that.

They weren’t thinking because they were more focused on the moment: taking a picture that would get them “points,” or venting their frustrations about a fact of a cop’s life.

Because that’s the whole point of social networking: reaching out to others, your “friends,” whenever the mood strikes. Being honest, being transparent, showing you’re human and you suffer the same little trials everyone else does. Showing you’re not above them, showing you’re with them.

That’s worth considering. People show up for PR train wrecks because they like to see authority figures come down. Whether it’s a way of getting some back after a traffic ticket, or just because we all feel a little inadequate, seeing the powerful humbled is, well, validating. We feel a little better about our own shortcomings when we see everyone else has them too.

So the key isn’t to crack down on social media usage, ban it outright and closely monitor employees’ personal accounts. Not by any stretch. The key is to show them how they can be human and still be professional.

Outstanding professionals

Social media use does not lend itself to a laundry list of “don’ts.” That’s because it’s inherently out of organizational control. Certainly, it is a good start to construct social media training around conduct policies, help officers start to think critically about what they post online.

But it’s only a start. Officers are still going to use these sites. They’re still going to want to talk about work; law enforcement isn’t just a job, after all, but part of many cops’ identities.

Some officers will prefer only to hang out in an online “bar,” of sorts, talking in safely restricted forums about their work. For that, I recommend OfficerResource.com, a forum whose moderators personally vet every applicant to its LE-only areas.

But others will see the potential for using social media to build their careers. Some people call it “personal branding.” I don’t like this term; when I hear “brand” I think Pepsi or Ford. Loyalty to a brand might be part of a person’s identity, but human relationships are formed and maintained differently.

I prefer to think in terms of “outstanding” professionals. PoliceOne.com makes reference to “5 percenters,” those officers who are exceptional performers in any situation whether tactical or mundane, who respond the right way because they’ve trained themselves to do so.

Put a 5 percenter online—or show 10-, 15-, or 20-percenters how to act online the same way they should wearing the badge in the real world—and you turn a potential liability into a very powerful tool. Officers who are allowed to tell their stories responsibly and respectfully accomplish a number of things:

• They show community members what it is they’re doing behind the restricted-access areas of the police station.
• They inform and educate about misunderstood or important topics to the community.
• They reinforce the perception that they’re part of a professional team, both the agency and their own unit.

An invitation

Part of the reason I’ve been absent from blogging over the last few weeks is that, among my other work, I’ve been building: a redesigned website that focuses on exactly the services I provide.

My focus is on “content creation and strategy” for the law enforcement and digital forensics communities. In essence, that means helping clients and/or customers to find and tell their stories strategically, through tactics like blogging, podcasting, and so forth.

My new blog, “The Outstanding Investigator,” will cover the kinds of concepts I just wrote about above. I hope you’ll subscribe to it—the content is as free there as it is here—and if you’re interested in what I have to offer, please let me know that too.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to blog here at Cops 2.0, perhaps less frequently, but still with the broader look at social media in law enforcement that I’ve always taken. Happy New Year, and thanks for being part of my world!

Image: soulmuser via Flickr

After the presentation, put the slides online

Blogging about LinkedIn last time, one thing I neglected to mention was that LinkedIn allows you to “plug in” other applications like WordPress blogs, travel itineraries, Amazon.com reading lists, and Twitter feeds.

Those are pretty personal details. Unless your blog and your reading list are purely work-related, you might hesitate to plug them in to a professional profile. And who wants to tell the world when your family will be home alone while you travel to a conference?

Two LinkedIn applications, though, do deserve mention and merit for law enforcement use—especially those who regularly present to the public about crimes like identity theft and Internet safety. The SlideShare and Google Presentation applications allow you to embed your slide decks directly into your profile.

How sharing slide decks helps you

In the first place, posting your slide decks online helps your community. Not everyone can make it to your evening presentation at the local high school or senior center, and even if you can present more than once, that still doesn’t guarantee reaching everyone.

Making your presentation available online means that not only can absentees see it; anyone in the community can share it with family and friends, in or outside of the community. Think about the reach that has?

In the second place, sharing your slide decks helps your agency. Post them online, and the public affairs office doesn’t have to approve your in-public presentations, or field calls from people asking for help on “frequently asked questions.” Well, maybe they do… but your slide deck(s) make it easier for them to point to good information.

Same for when you hear from other cops who need presentations on your topic but don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Not only do you not have to email them the presentation; they can use it the same way you do: to inform citizens who can’t make it to their talks.

For one client, I didn’t just post slide decks to SlideShare; I then embedded them on the company’s main website. Depending on the deck, I could’ve embedded them in a blog entry, too. They’re a good way to provide visual content without having to deal with video, and embedding them in several places—website, blog, LinkedIn profile—means they are spread around the web, increasing the chances of their being seen.

This is important. If you know enough about your topic to present on it, then making it more available online means it’s easier for people who need your expertise to find you. I know, this makes a lot of cops (and their administrators) uncomfortable. But again, if you’re presenting in public, you’re already putting yourself out there, making those personal connections. Using the web amplifies your efforts.

A word about effective slide decks

Poorly presented slide decks can backfire, which is one reason why their use gets mixed reaction from professional speakers. Make sure yours get the message across without detracting from your live presentation, or being too vague and confusing when shared online. A contradiction? Actually, I recommend ThinkOutsidetheSlide.com and its companion blog. These ideas are expressed much more effectively there.

There is no good reason not to allow officers to put information out for public consumption of all kinds of topics. Slide deck uploads can help both the department and the individual officer, branding the officer’s professional career and “expert” status at the same time that it brands the agency—not only as a trustworthy source of information, but also as one that can be trusted to hire the right people.

What kinds of presentations can you start sharing today?

Image: Lachlan Hardy via Flickr

Used LinkedIn as part of a tiered social networking strategy

My last few posts have talked about the differences among personal, professional, and official police presences on the social Web; the need for goals and boundaries; and a little about knowing what the tools are for.

I want to focus on one of those tools, in part because it is a good start for officers to build a professional (rather than personal) presence online, but also because I was able to talk to one officer about how it fits in his overall social media strategy. That tool is LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has changed since I joined it a couple of years ago. Then, it seemed to be little more than an online resume service with references conveniently built in. Now, it’s become a much more powerful networking tool, and not just for job hunts. PR professionals use it to connect with journalists; specialists use it to find other specialists to whom to outsource.

Law enforcement, on the other hand, uses it hardly at all. And that’s a shame. Here’s why: unlike Facebook or Twitter, it’s totally professional.

I won’t go into great detail about all of LinkedIn’s features. Other bloggers, including Ari Herzog and Dan Schawbel, have done that, and you can find an entire blog related to the subject. (Be sure also to read a ConnectedCOPS description of how one police chief networks at the executive level.) But I’ve blogged before about expert branding, and LinkedIn is probably one of the best social tools to do that.

The digital forensic expert

I met Sgt. Danny Garcia on Twitter, as I began to follow digital forensic experts. A computer forensic lab supervisor for the Miami-Dade Police Department, he has created a LinkedIn profile pretty much in line with what is recommended: detailed with his current experience, making reference to previous assignments; taking advantage of features like Groups* (good for networking) and travel itineraries (likewise, only in person); and of course, updated with recent connections.

What makes a law enforcement power user of LinkedIn? “I was reluctant to join at first,” Garcia told me. “A friend of over 20 years, a private forensic photographer (@wymanent), referred me about a year ago. I found it was the easiest way to keep in touch with professional contacts.”

Many of those come from conferences, but business card trading is about as beneficial as baseball card trading nowadays. “People move around in this industry,” Garcia says, “but if they regularly update their LinkedIn profile, I can see where they are and what they’re doing without having to chase them down.”

That’s valuable in a field like digital forensics, where examiners need to be able to reach out for help with specialized procedures and equipment. Likewise valuable: the ability to connect with information technology or non-forensic professionals who may have important insights about a problem, and even to find out who is no longer privy to restricted information.

If anything, LinkedIn is another way to provide what Garcia calls “instant, constant communication” with other practitioners, but because it duplicates neither information nor individuals, it’s an important complement to other online communities such as Forensic Focus or the many listservs that serve professional associations.

Limitations for law enforcement

There are a few general limitations to LinkedIn, but for law enforcement, additional ones exist. “Some things about law enforcement cannot be discussed even within a professional network,” says Garcia. “Group restrictions, site security, and any vetting processes are only as good as the person who administers them.”

Even though LinkedIn is purely professional, workplace policies may restrict its use. At MDPD, says department spokesman Juan Villalba, there is no specific social media policy, but the department is cognizant of what its representative officers can say about it online. The general conduct policy applies to off-duty online conduct, while another policy governs social network use at work, on county computers.

Garcia also points out that “social networking fatigue” may come into play among investigators who don’t want to visit one more site to keep up with things. So, just as he uses Flickr only to share photographs without discussing them, law enforcement officers should be able to use LinkedIn in the ways that best work for them—even if it’s not what “the experts” recommend.

Tiered social networking

A final note: what prompted me to approach Garcia about his LinkedIn usage was only in part about his profile. It actually started with a Twitter conversation we had about how he “tiers” his social networking, maintaining a strict separation among LinkedIn (professional only), Facebook (close friends and family only), and Twitter (a hybrid).

Other law enforcement professionals may find this kind of system beneficial, as well. Although it’s Garcia’s personal choice, he says, “Do the people I work with really need or even want to know what I’m doing on the weekend?”

The tiered approach to social media may also help people who are reluctant or unsure of how to use the technology. They need to know how it works for, say, investigations (I know some detectives who maintain Facebook profiles only undercover, or who use it only to learn about the site and its features). And they need to be able to see the realities of use in the event they ever do start to use it more regularly.

Overall, however, LinkedIn use carries far less risk than does use of any of the other social networks, and its possibilities range beyond individual officers’ professional development.

For instance, they may be able to connect with local business owners and service providers. That can be valuable to building relationships with people who want to learn more about kinds of crimes (say, identity theft) and how to protect employees and customers.

Professionals who brand themselves as such can only reflect well on their agency. Those who are guided as to how to brand themselves are far more effective than officers left to their own devices—who may not brand themselves the way anyone would want to see.

As Garcia notes, law enforcement officers should remember that they are held to a higher standard than the private citizen. “Status messages posted on social networking sites are often read by people who perceive statements as matter-of-fact,” he explains. “These statements may reflect poorly on not just the individual’s beliefs, but also reflects upon their agency and the law enforcement profession in general.”

How can you use LinkedIn to promote yourself as a law enforcement professional?

*Some law enforcement-related Groups:

Law Enforcement 2.0
Law Officer: Tactics, Technology, Training
PoliceOne.com Network
The Law Enforcement Network

Image: clevercupcakes via Flickr