«Vinton PD jumps into new era with interactive website»
During 2007’s promotional process for the Vinton Police Department, an idea was born. Detective James Testerman, then on his way to becoming Master Police officer, had to give a presentation during this process. The topic was to present something that would benefit the department and citizens, essentially to find a better way of doing things. Testerman began to think about the communication between the police department and the citizens, realizing that the department wasn’t taking advantage of the capabilities that the Internet would bring to communication. “Our department uses email constantly to communicate”, Testerman said. “I figured we could do the same with the citizens.” He began to search around the country, seeing what other departments used and he came across a company named BobCOP out of Nevada. “They have developed an online reporting system, but that’s not all it does, it also serves as a website,” says Testerman.
The department adopted the BobCOP System and in it there is an array of options available for the citizens to communicate with the police department. Although it does appear as a simple every day website, it is much more. The design was recently finished.
“The website will allow citizens to do many things, including submitting some criminal reports,” says Testerman. Other features that are “citizen friendly” on the site include submitting feedback to the department whether it is in regards to the staff, or any traffic issues, submit watch requests on homes or businesses, informing the police of any found property as well as registering their property, should it ever go missing, a direct contact with animal control, trap requests for wildlife, submitting missing pet information and finding court information and finding out information about outstanding warrants. This, along with finding regular information, will streamline the process for the citizens and the police, making it a much easier task to get in touch with or pass information along to the local police department.
“This is what it’s going to come to in the future,” says the Detective, “this is how most departments in the country are going to be able to share and receive information.” Sergeants and Master Police officers, the top officers on the shift will have access to the administrative side of the system, checking periodically for new information sent in to the site. Also, to eliminate any confusion, there is a tracking feature that will allow each shift to know the status of all of the things sent in, “it’s very well developed; you can tell they sat down and thought about it before they developed it and thought about it from every angle.”
“Some people many think, “they’re not going to respond to me,” says Testerman, “but we are going to be checking this site, we’re going to respond.” The website address is: http://vinton.bobcop.com/, the features are active and ready to go, the department is monitoring and they are waiting for your feedback.
