Social media helped Dallas police bust a gang of motorcyclists who, on Memorial Day weekend, briefly shut down North Central Expressway.
It was also a key in ending the career of a Dallas police officer who boasted on Facebook about her brawl with a Plano hospital worker.
Both cases illustrate the growing influence of social media in law enforcement and are likely to be discussed at the three-day Social Media the Internet and Law Enforcement conference that began Wednesday morning at the Aloft Hotel in downtown Dallas.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown welcomed roughly 100 law enforcement types from as far away as Canada and the United Kingdom as they convened to talk and Tweet about flash mobs, mass surveillance and engaging citizens without the pesky media filter, among other topics.
The 50-year-old police chief admittedly lacks the technological savvy of younger officers, but he said those in his profession are "trying to figure out what social media really means for law enforcement and its uses."
For conference founder Lauri Stevens, the mission is to explain just that to those who dropped about $600 to attend.
"What you see going on are a lot of agencies putting up a Facebook page and saying, 'There, we do social media,'" said Stevens, a communications consultant based in Massachusetts. "They don't understand that there's much more to it than that. If they're really proactive and strategic about the way they approach it, they can achieve some cool stuff."
The Dallas conference, the fourth of its kind, will have a particular focus on utilizing social media to detect and deter flash mobs, riots and other mass gatherings. It follows several massive gatherings that made news around the world in recent months.
Among the most extreme examples are this year's political movements throughout the Middle East and riots in London and surrounding areas that broke out after a controversial fatal police shooting.
The belief that social media was helping fuel violence led to some disruption of the medium prompted by governments caught up in countries swept by the "Arab spring," and there was even talk of such intervention in the United Kingdom.
Mark Payne is the superintendent of West Midlands Police based in Wolverhampton, about 130 miles northwest of London. He is in Dallas to speak about his department's use of the medium during the August riots.
"We had a lot of success preventing some disorder and actually reassuring people by using social media to get the messages out through the rioting," Payne said.
Violent flash mobs organized through social networks have also been reported in the U.S., including group robberies and assaults. It's a concern that Brown said he's had since taking over as chief last year.
"That flash mob is something that all law enforcement agencies, particularly urban cities, will have to really try to find a way to be ahead of and deploy resources ahead of the flash mob, instead of waiting for someone to call us when it's already occurring," Brown said.
The chief also pointed to his department's use of Facebook to help nab at least one key player in the Memorial Day motorcycle incident. And he said online profiles have played a role in officer disciplinary proceedings more than once.
The most notable case was that of Senior Cpl. Cat Lafitte, who was fired in June for escalating a February disturbance and posting comments on Facebook that could damage the department's image.
Police throughout the country are also increasingly asking for the public to assist them in spotting criminals or disrupting terrorist plots. One of the most notable Web-based initiatives that incorporate citizen participation is "iWatch," a version of which launched in Los Angeles in 2009 and in Dallas last year.
All the talk of mass surveillance has prompted widespread privacy concerns. That's what Kristene Unsworth of Drexel University in Philadelphia is at the conference to talk about.
When authorities scour Facebook and Twitter for criminals, "it's an incredibly huge net that's being cast that has the potential to bring a lot of people who are completely innocent of wrongdoing, to catch them in the same huge matrix," said Unsworth, an assistant professor at the Drexel College of Information Science and Technology.
Solving crime is not the only piece of the law enforcement social media strategy. Another key component of Brown's social media vision, for example, involves the way the department delivers news and communicates with citizens and the mainstream media.
"We want to tell our own story, but we know in our free press society we don't get to always hear our story the way we want to tell it," Brown said in his opening remarks. "So, could social media bridge that gap for law enforcement would be a question I would really like to hear dialogue around. Some answers and maybe some solutions to how we can use social media in that area."
The Dallas Police Department has increased its social media presence in recent years. A few examples:
The Department posts news, public service announcements, traffic alerts and more via its Twitter account, @DallasPD (Twitter.com/DallasPD). They had nearly 6,000 followers as of Wednesday.
More than 7,300 Facebook users have "liked" the Dallas Police Department page, where many of the same messages sent via Twitter and additional photos are also posted.
iWatchDallas.net
Launched last year, this web-based initiative seeks criminal tips from residents via a website and apps developed for handheld devices, including the BlackBerry and iPhone.
Copyright 2011 - The Dallas Morning News
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
