Tweet the Po-lice!

What’s the tipping point for online social media tools becoming an accepted way to send a cry for help? (That’s a real cry for help to the authorities — a 911 call — not a metaphorical one.)

I don’t think we’re quite there yet, but there are two recent examples that demonstrate that we’re getting closer:

* First, we’ve got the story of a teacher in Texas who was arrested for pistol-whipping a teenager with whom he lived. [Link via Fark.] The social media angle is that the victim had recorded video of the assault, but instead of taking it to police herself, she uploaded the video to YouTube, “…in hopes that someone would alert the police.”

Without knowing the specifics (also, the video was pulled down from YouTube), we can only speculate on her state of mind. Presumably, she was intimidated enough to not go directly to the cops… but was she reaching out to a specific audience whom she knew followed her uploads, or did she truly put her fate in the hands of strangers on YouTube? (A scary thought.)

* Next, we’ve got an Atlanta city councilman, Kwanza Hall, who called 911 to help a woman having a seizure. However, he didn’t call 911 directly — he posted to Twitter, asking his followers to call 911 for him. Apparently, bystanders were having trouble reaching 911, and his phone battery was dying, so he reached out to his distributed audience of 1,800+ followers. And it seems to have worked.

Qualms about Twitter outages notwithstanding (anyway, they’re much better these days), calling 911 by proxy through your Twitter followers probably ain’t the best idea — outside of technical problems (like sending location data), you’re also talking about possibly flooding the 911 call center with a bunch of redundant secondhand reports. (It’s similar to the phenomena of increased 911 call volume because of cell phones, caused by many people calling in to report the same incident.)

911 in 160 Characters or Less?
As we’ve moved from the cop on the beat, to corner call boxes (this may be NYC-specific), to landline phones, to now-ubiquitous cell phones, we’ve seen how people and the police have adapted to new forms of media.

For a few years now, cities have been trying to figure out ways to incorporate texting and other mobile technologies into their emergency services, for everything from tips hotlines to emergency notification broadcasts. (I also recall, but cannot find, a story about a police force which printed cell phone numbers on the side of their cruisers, that citizens could use to call the officer behind the wheel — it got a better response for their community policing than a generic 911 call.)

Texting has its advantages — in many cases, it’s more reliable because it requires less bandwidth. Though for situations that are truly emergencies, text would clearly be second-choice — you need to be able to get instant feedback so you can give and get the vital info, and voice is suitably information-rich. (As long as you have enough bars on your phone.)

As to the rest of it: The police, like any other government institution, should be monitoring social media, and not just for, say, gang intelligence-gathering or putting the hurt on people who are dumb enough to post evidence of themselves committing crimes. We’ve heard about some departments blogging (and more than just posting their crime blotters).

Of all the public institutions that impact people’s lives, the police, fire and EMS are probably the most important, and many times the most controversial, so it’s particularly important for them to be out participating in the conversation.

There’s a lot more I can probably say on the issue, but I’m not an expert on municipal and police use of social media communication tools, so I’d be interested in hearing your comments first.