MILWAUKEE — When Milwaukee police wanted to get word of a murder out quickly, they did it in 113 characters on Twitter. “Latest homicide in the city is NOT a random act. Male, 33, shot in 1500 block N. 39. More details as we have them,” read the recent entry.
Milwaukee’s department is one of a growing number of police and fire agencies — including Boulder police and fire — turning to social-networking websites such as Twitter, which lets users send text-message “tweets” to a mass audience in 140 characters or fewer. The tweets can be read on the Web or on mobile phones within seconds.
Some departments use Twitter to alert people to traffic disruptions, to explain why police are in a certain neighborhood or to offer crime-prevention tips. Others encourage leads on more pressing matters: bomb scares, wildfires, school lockdowns and evacuations.
People signed up to automatically receive every tweet from one source are known as “followers,” and by that measure, public-safety Twitter pages are nowhere near the most popular.
Cyclist Lance Armstrong and actress Demi Moore each have more than 500,000 followers. Milwaukee police have about 900.
But even nonfollowers can see the updates, too. Milwaukee police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz, one of two Twitterers in the department, says the site is a valuable resource.
“We are trying to reach people in the places they are already going for information,” she said.
