Police on the Internets

Since November the Boston Police Department has been bringing a little bit of the blotter to the blogosphere. Reports of daily incidents, updates on publicly reported crime, announcements, and media corrections have been available on the BPDNews.com website. As usual Hollywood, well, LA, is getting all the attention. The AP picked up a story last week emanating from the LA Times and the Times of London about the Los Angeles Police Departments new blog. Apparently the research monkeys in the trenches had one of two problems: they didn't look hard enough or they don't think that Boston is a major city. Boston's finest don't come right out and say it – but the post today indicates that they're playing blog politics and playing nice, "still first in the nation." Perhaps the most surprising about this all is the usually police-force-friendly Boston Herald neglected an edit to the AP story before they ran it in order to mention the BPDNews.com site, and the bloggers at BPD politely pointed that out.

Mayor Menino today announced his plans to go beyond the blogosphere in harnessing the power of the internets: CitizenObserver. Menino urged Boston residents to sign up for the service today at a press conference held at – wait for it – the South Bay Center Target. It's not clear how much target is paying Menino if you'll be able to turn in firearms online with the site. Citizen Observer uses digital media to deliver alerts on open cases, current crime activity, and other crime related items of note to subscribers via fax, cell phones/pagers, and email – neglecting those outside that community who are already distanced in the digital divide. Only a few precincts are signed on to the service so far – including C-11 (Dorchester), C-6 (Southie), and B-2 (Roxbury) – but the wonderful border precinct, E-13 of Jamaica Plain, has yet to get on board. E-13 services at least one of the "Hot Spots" as defined by the Boston Globe for crime last year. Transparency, visibility, and enforcement may all work together to help subside the growing epidemic of crime in Boston. Every effort might help – so don't discount what Citizen Observer may be able to accomplish, even if it's sponsored by Target (at least for the first year).

Sidebar: Wouldn't it be excellent if the new class of cadets were all on MySpace?

Can you ride off into the internets? Perhaps not, but Flickr user ckirkman captures a real life officer on a horse one day before the launch of BPDNews.com.