UK Police Force Posts All Its Calls On Twitter

Stoobalou writes "One of the largest police forces in the UK is posting every incident reported to it today on Twitter. Greater Manchester Police began its 24-hour experiment this morning at 05:00 BST, tweeting all incident reports in the hope of highlighting the complexity of modern policing. 'Policing is often seen in very simple terms, with cops chasing robbers and locking them up,' Chief Constable Peter Fahy said in a statement. 'However the reality is that this accounts for only part of the work they have to deal with.'"

Comments

I like the idea.

[TheDarkMaster]

It's a good idea. I work indirectly for a section of the government whose goal is to solve disasters in cities, and because of that I have access to recorded events attended by firefighters. Happens things all the time every day, more than 30, 50 events per day, and the most varied situations as possible. The public thinks that firefighters only fights fires, but when you are there "in" seeing what happens see that they actually do much more than that. The same for the cops.

Spoof accounts targeted by police

[Blacklaw]

Looks like the GMP doesn't have much of a sense of humour - it's threatening spoof account holders with the crime of impersonating a police officer. Shame, because some of 'em are very well done - such as the Super Mario Brothers version...

Re:So

[delinear]

I'd guess to try and improve their public profile (you might find this surprising, but in some parts of society the police are not fondly viewed) and probably to attract funding from the private sector.

Re:Delay?

[elvum]

Police in the UK use TETRA, an encrypted radio system.