Hemet, Calif.– The Hemet Police Department is launching a Facebook page in an effort to better connect with the community, Hemet Police Chief Dave Brown said Aug. 16.
Brown said the decision to do so was solidified by the massive social media blitz that resulted in nearly 1,000 residents attending a recent City Council and demanding changes to quality of life issues affecting the city and surrounding areas.
A majority of those issues are ones that Hemet Police deal with on a daily basis, including crime, blight, sex offenders and other similar issues.
Brown said that the department would monitor its social media page daily and use it to interact with residents in the hopes that an open line of communication would be beneficial to both sides.
"It's always been a priority of mine to ensure we are always available to the community," Brown said. "Tuesday night proved we were clearly missing a big segment of the community by not being on Facebook."
A number of Facebook pages have been launched centering around quality of life issues in the city and Brown said that the events of the past two weeks made it a clear priority that the department had to evolve and communicate in the same ways that residents are doing.
The pages were sparked on Facebook by a local nurse who was mugged at knifepoint during daylight. She took to social media to express her frustrations, prompting a massive outpouring of residents at the meeting who vowed to work with the city to cure Hemet's ills.
Brown said that the department will post press releases about crimes, public safety tips and how to volunteer. But more importantly, he said, he hoped it would be an avenue to always keep lines of communications open and show the department is accessible.