The Regina Police Service Twitter feed, @reginapolice, is about to get very busy. Today from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., we will tweet about calls for service to help the public understand what a typical day for the Regina Police Service looks like. This is a part of a global event called “#PolTwt” where police departments around the world are invited to tweet about things going on in their communities. The tweets will not contain specific details like addresses or person information, but will briefly describe the nature of the call for service, e.g. “2 vehicle MVA at the corner of Broad St & 1st Ave N. Pls avoid the area for now. #PolTwt”.
The Regina Police Service dispatched 59,968 calls for service in 2014, an average of 164.29 calls for service per day. Typically, the public doesn’t hear about every call for service, since many are routine, low-risk and sometimes unfounded. Even Regina Police Service news releases and social media posts and tweets focus on public safety alerts, higher-profile investigations or events that affect the general public, like collision scenes where traffic is being re-routed. The purpose of tweeting eight hours’ worth of calls for service is to educate the public about the different types of calls Regina Police Service officers attend. This is a one-day event and will only happen from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. @reginapolice Tweets will go out as events occur, and the RPS Facebook page will be updated with the contents of the tweets at noon and after 4:30 p.m.
As always, if there are any larger matters to address, the Regina Police Service Public Information section will issue a news release, and post to the website and social media accounts as per our usual protocol. For more information on #PolTwt, follow the hashtag on Friday, October 2nd or visit the website at http://poltwt.net/.
